If you told a Washington Commanders fan one year ago that they would be Super Bowl contenders in 2025, what do you think the reaction might have been?
We’ll help — they probably would have said you lost your mind. Yet here we are, headed into a new season and the Commanders are very much Super Bowl contenders. To the point where even the Vegas oddsmakers have them among their Top 10 Super Bowl favorites.
Bleacher Report’s Moe Moton evaluated the levels of pressure for each of the Top 10 Super Bowl contenders — in regards to the odds, at least — headed into the season.
While the Commanders came one win from making it to the Super Bowl in 2024, that run came as a complete surprise.
Translation: Hardly anyone expects they’ll get back to that place again in 2025.
“The Commanders are ahead of schedule in their rebuild,” Moton wrote on June 26. “With a second-year signal-caller and a coaching staff that optimized the talent on a rebuilt roster, Washington isn’t under much pressure to win Super Bowl LX, though the club should enter the 2025 season with the mindset it can win it all.”
Jayden-Mania Took Over D.C., NFL Might Be Next
There might not be a player in the NFL with a brighter future than Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft.
Daniels is also the central reason the Commanders are considered among the NFL’s handful of legitimate Super Bowl contenders.
As a senior at LSU in 2023, Daniels played his way into top draft pick status with a season for the ages — 3,812 passing yards, 40 touchdowns and 4 interceptions to go with 1,134 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns as he won the Heisman Trophy.
Daniels was a sensation as a rookie. He was named a Pro Bowler and NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2024 and is already the most popular player in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. His fame only promises to grow as time goes by — including the fact the Commanders are planning to move back to D.C. with a new stadium at the old RFK site in the next few years.
What could put a kink in those plans? If Daniels has a regression in Year 2 similar to what 2023 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud experienced in 2024.
Commanders Have One of NFL’s Toughest Schedules
If the Commanders do make it back to the postseason in 2025, it will be a much more difficult path than they had in 2024 — NFL.com ranked their schedule the eighth toughest in the NFL.
From NFL.com: “Over the past eight years, teams facing the league’s hardest schedule have often struggled to reach the playoffs. Since 2017, six of the eight teams that started the year with the most challenging slate of opponents missed the postseason.”
While the Commanders have a tough schedule overall, they open with a relatively soft series of games, including 3 of their first 4 games against teams with losing records in 2024. Washington opens the season at home, as well, facing the lowly New York Giants on September 7.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Super Bowl ‘Pressure’ Starts to Mount for Commanders in 2025 appeared first on Heavy Sports.