"It's time to be very wrong. After six long months without the NFL, Week 1 is finally upon us. And like everyone else, I've had all summer to digest free agency and the draft, read all the preseason hype and form strong opinions about what will and won't happen in 2025. I have my 14 playoff teams and my Super Bowl pick ready."
"Instead, this column is going to try to use what history tells us to structure my predictions differently, even if it steers me to picks that feel less pleasant than the favorites from 2024. We're entering Year 24 of the 32-team era, and while the NFL has added an extra regular-season game and a third wild-card entry, teams have spent that time in the same divisions and roughly the same playoff format."
"That all starts with one fact: From 2002 to 2023, an average of 7.9 of the 14 teams that qualified for the playoffs -- or that would have gone to the playoffs as the 7-seed if the league had moved to a 14-team playoff format in 2002 -- made it back the following season. I'll round that up to eight. My first constraint for picking playoff teams starts there: I'm allowed to pick only eight teams from the 2024 playoffs to make it back."
Historical playoff retention from 2002–2023 averaged 7.9 of 14 qualifying teams returning the next season, rounded up to eight as a prediction constraint. The NFL has added an extra regular-season game and a third wild-card since the 32-team era began, while divisions and playoff format have remained largely stable. Predictive choices will be limited to only eight returning teams from the 2024 playoff field. Additional historically based constraints and rules will be applied to project 2025 playoff participants. Recent seasons have shown notable year-to-year variance, which will inform expectations for bracket shifts and turnover.
Read at ESPN.com
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