The NFL offseason is typically a time for hope.
Every team makes its new hires and signs its new players and brings in its long-term building blocks in the draft, and this time of year, everyone wants to think that everything is going to work out just fine. That’s the case even once we get rolling into the preseason games, because there is still time for all the kinks to be worked out.
But of course, we know things don’t always work out for the best. There are always challenges that pop up or things that need to be overcome. That’s why we’re here. We want to take a look at some of the biggest challenges or issues facing each NFL team this upcoming season.
We began yesterday by looking at the NFC and close things out with the 16 AFC teams today.
AFC East
Buffalo Bills: Defensive back
The Bills have some uncertainty at cornerback at the moment. First-round pick Maxwell Hairston is dealing with an LCL sprain. The other options at that spot are retreads in old friend Tre’Davious White and Dane Jackson, or 2025 sixth-rounder Dorian Strong. That spot is very much in flux alongside Christian Benford on the outside and Taron Johnson in the slot. And Buffalo certainly hopes to get better safety play out of the trio of Damar Hamlin, Taylor Rapp and last year’s second-round pick, Cole Bishop.
Miami Dolphins: Cornerback
The Dolphins were already thin at cornerback even before they traded Jalen Ramsey. They lost Artie Burns for the season. They lost Kader Kohou for the season. They signed Mike Hilton and Jack Jones off the street early in training camp to provide depth, and now those guys might have significant roles. Elsewhere, it’s 2023 disappointment Cam Smith. Kendall Sheffield, Storm Duck and maybe 2025 fifth-rounder Jason Marshall Jr. Sheesh. There are a TON of question marks here.
New England Patriots: Drake Maye’s supporting cast
New England put Maye in an awful situation last year, plopping him into the lineup behind an awful offensive line and with a skill-position corps that left a lot to be desired. Things should be better this season after the Pats went out and remade the offensive line (Will Campbell, Jared Wilson, Garrett Bradbury, Morgan Moses) and added Stefon Diggs, TreVeyon Henderson and Kyle Williams to the mix at wide receiver and running back. But there are still questions about how this will all work, and whether the Patriots did enough to put Maye in better position to succeed than he was a year ago.
New York Jets: Pass-catchers
This is a R-O-U-G-H group of receivers and tight ends after Garrett Wilson. New York’s ostensible No. 2 wide receiver is Josh Reynolds. Yes, that Josh Reynolds. After that it’s guys like Allen Lazard, who was signed mainly because he’s Aaron Rodgers’ guy, Tyler Johnson, Xavier Gipson, Malachi Corley and fourth-round pick Arian Smith. It is a very uninspiring group. And second-round tight end Mason Taylor is already dealing with an injury. Justin Fields isn’t the greatest passer to begin with, and he doesn’t have a lot to work with here.
AFC North
Baltimore Ravens: Secondary turnover
Baltimore seemingly does this with its defensive backfield every year, but the pressure is on once again to build half the secondary from scratch. Marlon Humphrey and Kyle Hamilton are mainstays at this point, but after the injury to Ar’Darius Washington, first-round pick Malaki Starks will have to play a big role right away. With Brandon Stephens moving on, there’s an opening at the corner spot across from last year’s first rounder, Nate Wiggins, and it’ll likely be filled by Jaire Alexander or Chidobe Awuzie, whomever stays healthiest. There’s plenty of talent, but we have to see how it all fits together.
Cincinnati Bengals: D-E-F-E-N-S-E
The Bengals had one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL last season, but they were sitting at home during the playoffs because their defense was an abomination. They’re hoping that new defensive coordinator Al Golden can change some stuff there, but if they don’t get Trey Hendrickson signed and in the lineup, don’t get first-round pick Shemar Stewart up to speed and don’t get much-improved play from a bunch of their recent draft picks, they might be left on the outside looking in once again. Joe Burrow and Co. can score 30 to 40 points, but they shouldn’t have to do it every week just to give the team even a remote chance to win.
Cleveland Browns: Quarterback play
Well, duh. They say that when you have two quarterbacks, you really have none. Well, the Browns somehow have four quarterbacks. So really they might have negative-one? It seems highly likely that Joe Flacco will start the year under center, but the idea of him making it through the entire season doesn’t pass the smell test. We might get looks at both Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders before the year is up. And there is really no way to know what to expect here — other than the Browns landing a top pick in next year’s draft.
Pittsburgh Steelers: Aaron Rodgers
Rodgers is, at this point, a major question mark for whichever team he’s on. Not just in terms of the quality of his play, but also his willingness to actually work inside the structure of an NFL offense. His touchdown-to-interception ratio in New York last year is wildly misleading when it comes to how he actually played. He was short-cutting the options within the system repeatedly to avoid getting hit, spraying throws underneath or deep down the field on a whim rather than going through his progressions and finding the right man with whom to pepper the ball. The idea that he’s going to be a seamless fit with Arthur Smith because Smith once coached with Matt LaFleur is … questionable to say the least.
Every NFC team’s biggest challenge in 2025: Cowboys’ run defense, Bears’ expectations and more issues
Jared Dubin
AFC South
Houston Texans: Offensive line
Houston’s offensive line undermined its entire season last year. The group up front, and the lack of a plan offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik and Co. devised to account for its weaknesses, drove the Texans’ offense into a downward spiral. C.J Stroud looked nothing like the comfortable, confident passer he was during his rookie season, and just about everything went awry. The Texans made massive changes to the line, but they didn’t necessarily bring in any surefire starters. Instead, it’s a lot of what ifs and maybes and hopefullys. They badly need this group to hold up in front of Stroud so they can deliver on their offensive promise.
Indianapolis Colts: Quarterback play
We wrote about the Colts’ quarterback situation the other day. It’s concerning, to say the least. An Anthony Richardson vs. Daniel Jones quarterback competition wasn’t all that inspiring to begin with. But now Richardson dislocated his pinky and we don’t know when he’ll be full strength. Even at full strength, he’s still a major question mark at this point. And if Jones has to start, then what are the Colts even trying to accomplish in the big picture other than potentially saving Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen’s jobs with a going-nowhere wild card playoff run? This is a team that needs Richardson to hit big, or to just hit the reset button.
Jacksonville Jaguars: Managing Travis Hunter
Hunter is perhaps the most unique player to enter the NFL in a long damn time. We know he is going to play both wide receiver and cornerback. And that’s just about all we know. We don’t know how often he’ll do either or both of those things, whether he’ll rotate by snap or by series or by game or if he’ll just be out there for 90-plus percent of the snaps like he was in college. We have no idea how this will work because we haven’t seen a player attempt it on a full-time basis in decades. And the Jags are the ones that have to manage this unusual situation.
Tennessee Titans: Cameron Ward’s supporting cast
The Titans tried to beef up the offensive line in expectation for Ward’s arrival in the draft. They signed Dan Moore Jr. and Kevin Zeitler in free agency and moved JC Latham back to his natural home on the right side of the line. But this was still one of the worst lines in the league last year, so they’re counting on a lot of improvement. And the skill position corps outside of Calvin Ridley and Tony Pollard leaves a lot to be desired. We’ve seen teams feel pretty good about their supporting cast and have it not work out (see Caleb Williams last year), but others with casts that looked shaky but ended up working out just fine (see Jayden Daniels last year and C.J. Stroud the year before). How will things shake out for the Titans and the No. 1 overall pick?
AFC West
Denver Broncos: Run game
Denver’s offensive line was great in pass protection last season, checking in first in Pro Football Focus’ pass-blocking grades and yielding pressure on only 28.3% of Bo Nix’s dropbacks. But the group up front was just okay in the run game, and the Broncos’ stable of backs did just about nothing with the holes that they did create. The team brought in two new backs in JK Dobbins and rookie RJ Harvey, and they’ll have to do a lot better than last year’s group in order to give Denver the more balanced offensive attack that Sean Payton typically likes to feature.
Kansas City Chiefs: Playmaker injuries/suspensions
This was supposed to be the year that the Chiefs finally got back to being explosive. Hell, last year was supposed to be that year. But injuries to Hollywood Brown and then Rashee Rice and then Isiah Pacheco robbed the Chiefs of any opportunity to rediscover that element of their offense. Well, fast forward to this year and Hollywood is already banged up in camp, Rice is facing a suspension stemming from his arrest last offseason, explosive rookie running back Brashard Smith has been out of practice and, well, who the heck knows if we’ll ever even see the Chiefs at full strength and back to cooking with the type of gas we saw them hit during Patrick Mahomes’ first few years in the league.
Las Vegas Raiders: Defensive back
The Raiders are starting a ton of new defensive backs this year. Gone are guys like Nate Hobbs and Tre’von Moehrig and Jack Jones and Jakorian Bennett. Newly arrived are Jeremy Chinn and Eric Stokes and third-round pick Darien Porter. We know that Pete Carroll can coach up defensive backs, but we also know it didn’t look all that pretty on the back end down the stretch of his time with the Seahawks. With a ton of turnover and not much in the way of elite talent, the back end is a big question mark here.
Los Angeles Chargers: (Suddenly) offensive line
This is only now becoming something of a question for the Chargers, who last week lost star left tackle Rashawn Slater (who recently signed a massive contract extension) for the season to a major knee injury. Now, Joe Alt will slide back across the offensive line to the left side. That means Trey Pipkins will likely get the first crack at the right tackle job. We’ve seen his work at times over the years, and it’s nothing to write home about. Maybe if it doesn’t work out, Jamaree Salyer gets a chance, or maybe Mekhi Becton kicks outside, Andre James plays center and Zion Johnson moves back to guard. Who knows? The point is there are suddenly questions here, when a week ago, there weren’t.
