Five Biggest Surprises of the NFL Season
“There are teams succeeding that people did not expect, and there have been teams with high expectations that have disappointed due to one reason or another”.
Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League#Clubs
November 26, 2025
Zachary Myers, Editor
We are about halfway through the 2025 NFL season, and it has been an interesting one. There are teams succeeding that people did not expect, and there have been teams with high expectations that have disappointed due to one reason or another. But who have been the biggest surprises this season?
1. Aaron Rodgers’s resurgence
Aaron Rodgers is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. In his career, he has almost 65,000 passing yards, four MVPs, a Super Bowl win and a Super Bowl MVP. Along with these accolades, he has the best touchdown-to-interception ratio of all time. In the most recent seasons of his career, however, his career has been on a sharp downturn. His last season with the Packers was disappointing considering his career status there, he only played four snaps with the Jets in his first season there and while he had pretty good stats in his only full season with the Jets, they went 5-12, and Rodgers played very disengaged and unclutch. In the 2025 offseason, he made a big deal about holding off until the last minute to sign with a team in free agency, propping himself up as if he was still the all time great he previously was. Near the end of training camp, the Steelers signed him to a one year contract to replace the dysfunctional combo of Russell Wilson and Justin Fields from the previous season.
In his first season with the Steelers, Rodgers has looked more like the 2021 version who threw for 4,115 yards with thirty seven touchdowns and only four interceptions. So far this year, he has just under 1,500 passing yards with sixteen touchdowns and only five interceptions. His 7.7 touchdown percentage is so far the best in the NFL, and he seems to be more engaged in the game. Rodgers’s mobility has gone back to previous form and he is once again making magical throws into tight coverages. He currently has the Steelers at 4-3 and at the top of the AFC north, and while their remaining schedule is relatively hard, his play so far leads me to believe the Steelers have a decent chance at the division with the injuries to Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow.
2. Daniel Jones and the Colts are the best team in the NFL
During the 2025 offseason, the Indianapolis Colts had one of the worst quarterback battles to look forward to in NFL history: Anthony Richardson vs Daniel Jones. While injuries have hampered his time, Richardson is one of the biggest busts in NFL history due to his horrific completion percentage and his decision making. Jones was the first round pick of the Giants in 2019 to replace franchise great Eli Manning, and while he had a good 2022 season resulting in a divisional round exit, he was overall the worst starter in the NFL. While his passing statistics were not terrible, he was turnover prone and never seemed to be a good leader for the Giants in the way they would have liked.
Before the season, Jones was appointed the starter for the Colts. This decision has worked out better than NFL fans, analysts, players and even Jones himself probably expected. The Colts currently have the best record in the NFL at 7-1 and are currently averaging thirty-four points per game. A lot of their success has come from their best player, running back Jonathan Taylor, who already has 850 rushing yards and twelve touchdowns through only eight games, which includes four games with three all-purpose touchdowns. That is not to take away from the miraculous resurgence of Daniel Jones however. He has a 71.2% completion rate with over 2,000 passing yards and only three interceptions. While people saw the first few games of success as a fluke given Jones’s previous status as a bust, the Colts have looked like a legitimate contender as the season has gone on. While I’d be weary about them come playoff time, I believe this team has the potential to make it far this season.
3. Geno Smith’s regression
In the 2022 NFL season, we saw a season from a draft bust that no one would have ever seen coming (similar to Daniel Jones this year). Geno Smith had been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. Previously being a massive bust for the Jets, before bouncing around to the Chargers and Giants as a backup and/or spot starter. He got his chance to start full time again after the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson to the Broncos in 2022, and Smith did not look back. He had almost 4,300 passing yards with thirty touchdowns and eleven interceptions while leading the NFL in completion percentage at 69.8%. He led the Seahawks to the playoffs that year and would do so as well in 2024.
This offseason, he was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders and joined up with his former head coach in Seattle, Pete Carroll. This reunion has not worked out at all however, as the Raiders currently sit at the bottom of the AFC west with a 2-5 record. Geno has done nothing to help the cause, as he has gone from one of the more underrated quarterbacks in the league to one of the worst. He currently has only a little over 1,400 passing yards with seven touchdowns and ten interceptions. With how good the AFC West is and how poorly Geno Smith has played, I do not see him or the Raiders getting a playoff spot this year, and if his year continues to be terrible, he could be on a short leash headed into next season.
4. Backup quarterback emergence
Oftentimes during NFL seasons, backup quarterbacks always make spot starts and star more than people think they would or should. There have been plenty of times this season where backups have needed to fill in for starting quarterbacks this year. While Cooper Rush and Jake Browning have been as bad as they are relatively expected to be, there have been two relative standouts this season: Mac Jones and Joe Flacco. Jones was a first round pick by the Patriots in 2021 and was supposed to be the franchise quarterback after Tom Brady. While his first season was good and resulted in a playoff berth, his last two seasons were horrible. He spent last season spot starting for the Jaguars and was to be expected. This year, he has started more long term for the 49ers because of Brock Purdy’s numerous injuries. In this role, Jones has done relatively well, throwing for eight touchdowns and five interceptions while leading the 49ers to a 4-2 record. While he will not be a long term 49ers starter, his play in absence of Purdy could lead him to another starting opportunity in the future.
Joe Flacco has been a mainstay in the NFL since his debut in 2008. His main career accomplishments came with the Ravens, winning Super Bowl 47 in 2013 while subsequently having one of the best playoff runs in NFL history. Ever since getting benched for Lamar Jackson in 2018, Flacco has bounced around in spot starts for several teams, most notably the Browns in 2023, whom he actually led to a surprise playoff berth. This season, he started the year as the Browns starter, but after a few mediocre and bad games, he was benched for rookie Dillon Gabriel. He would end up being traded to the Browns’ AFC North rival the Bengals, and Flacco would end up the starter since Joe Burrow is out for over three months with turf toe and the current back up, Jake Browning, played terribly. In his three games with Cincinnati, he has played better than anyone his age and previous career status should. While he has a measly 1-2 record, he has seven touchdowns with no interceptions and in the last two games, the Bengals have scored thirty-three and thirty-eight points respectively. While backup quarterbacks are only bridges until the starter comes back, the role they need to play is immense. The play of these two so far has been instrumental in ensuring the relative success of these teams.
5. Sam Darnold is actually a good quarterback
Before 2024, Sam Darnold was seen as one of the worst quarterback busts in NFL history. He was drafted number three by the Jets in 2018, who in effect passed on Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. In his time with the Jets, Darnold was arguably the worst quarterback in the NFL, going 13-25 with forty-five touchdowns and thirty-nine interceptions. He joined the Carolina Panthers in 2021, where he was arguably worse in a quarterback competition with current Buccaneers star Baker Mayfield. Last season, he would be presumed to be the backup of rookie quarterback JJ McCarthy on the Vikings. In a surprising development that year, McCarthy would suffer a season ending meniscus tear in the preseason, which would lead Darnold to start and lead to something unthinkable: he became a great quarterback.
In the 2024 NFL season, Sam Darnold had arguably the most out of nowhere year in NFL history, throwing for over 4,300 yards with thirty-five touchdowns and only twelve interceptions. He led the Vikings to a 14-3 record and ended up losing in the wild card round to the Rams. His surprisingly good performance led to some questions on whether or not he would be the starter and not McCarthy, who was the Vikings first round pick in 2024. Ultimately, the Vikings went with McCarthy and Darnold signed a $100 million dollar contract with the Seahawks. In 2025, with Seattle, Darnold has been rock solid again, leading the team to a 5-2 record, throwing for 1,754 yards and twelve touchdowns. He has also been the catalyst for the breakout of wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba and has truly shown that his 2024 season was not a fluke.
