First Quarter of the NFL Season in Review

The first five weeks of the 2025 NFL Season have somehow already come and gone and this year’s campaign is filled with just as many shock results and controversies as any before. From injuries to frontrunning quarterbacks Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, to surprise career resurgencies for the likes of Daniel Jones in Indianapolis, this landscape of the NFL has shifted dramatically once again just in September.

This unpredictability of the NFL has never been more clear through five games of the season

Starting with the contenders, whilst the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles both started strong as expected, the rest of their expected Super Bowl rivals have faltered to start the year. Whilst 3x Super Bowl Champion Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs appear to have turned things around after their slow start, fellow challengers Cincinnati and Baltimore have seen devastating injuries to their star quarterbacks, leaving their bids for 2025 glory in tatters before they could even begin.

Whilst these expected contenders have struggled, others have risen from the depths of mediocrity to take their place, with surprise fast starts from both the Los Angeles Chargers and Indianapolis Colts leading the NFL headlines throughout the first month. Joining them in the headlines were the Green Bay Packers, fresh off their blockbuster offseason trade to acquire one of the best defensive players in the league, Micah Parsons, who started the year with back to back impressive wins against Detroit and Washington before inexplicably losing to the Cleveland Browns, a result which remains the Browns’ only win so far.

This season promises to be another which delivers the incredible excitement which makes this game so popular across the world

This unpredictability of the NFL has never been more clear through five games of the season, with pundits across the media stunned by the collapse of some teams and the rise of others. One player who continues to stun the NFL world is Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield who despite seemingly being cut from the league in 2022 has completely turned his career around, and now leads a Buccaneers squad which sits 4-1 off the back of Mayfield’s four game-winning drives, a number which would be impressive for a whole season let alone the opening 5 games.

Not only is the NFL season well under way but so is its International program, which has seen two games take place in the United Kingdom & Ireland thus far, with the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Minnesota Vikings in Dublin before the Vikings got their revenge the following week with a comeback win over Cleveland. This game in Dublin was the first time the NFL had visited the country and it was a huge success, with a crowd of 74,000 delighted by the Steelers victory and the performance of their legendary quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

With almost three quarters of the regular season still left to play, this season promises to be another which delivers the incredible excitement which makes this game so popular across the world and with so many contenders seemingly out of the running, this year’s race for Super Bowl glory promises to be as open as ever.