After Week 4 of the NFL season, we’re starting to get a better idea of which teams are legitimate contenders for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Sure, we’re not quite a quarter of the way into the season. Yet already we’re seeing a stratification of the haves and have-nots, the teams playing for potential division titles and the teams that are starting to painfully realize this just isn’t their year.
Injuries, lack of talent, poor coaching, or bad team chemistry are all contributing factors for the teams at the bottom — often a motley melange of all of the above. After Week 4, there appear to be a couple of teams starting to separate from the back of 1-3 records and joining the Jacksonville Jaguars, the NFL’s only remaining winless team, in looking like legit contenders to earn the No. 1 overall pick for 2025.
Jaguars: 0-4. With a struggling franchise QB, a tired-feeling coach and a heap of key injuries on defense, the Jaguars are not close to the contenders many thought they’d be.
Panthers: 1-3. Benching QB Bryce Young helped salvage some hope for the precocious offense, but their current defensive front (DL/LBs) could be mistaken for a UFL roster.
Dolphins: 1-3. The (most recent) Tua Tagovailoa injury revealed the iceberg of tumult tearing through a roster stunningly devoid of an NFL middle class. Losing top pass rusher Jaelen Phillips is another deck chair over the side into the draft waters.
Patriots: 1-3. The betting favorites to be the worst team entering the season, New England has a bottom-tier offense and defense in the first year of the epic post-Belichick rebuild. The two New England/Miami matchups, one of which happens this Sunday, could be huge in determining the top of the draft.
Browns: 1-3. What’s left of their injury-ravaged OL cannot protect what used to be Deshaun Watson, and they’re getting absolutely nothing from their rookie class that indicates help is on the way soon.
