NFC Hierarchy/Obituary: Post-free agency edition

For those of you who are new here, we do a "Hierarchy/Obituary" post every week during the season, in which we kill off teams that have reached the point where they have almost no chance to make the playoffs. We then write their obituary and never speak of them in the Hierarchy again.

Anyway, it's my hackneyed sell-out spin on the more traditional "power rankings." Got it? Cool. Let's do a post-free agency edition.

16) Giants (3-14 in 2024): Worst NFL records since 2017:

Spoiler: Even though the head coach and general manager are running this offseason in a "win as many games as possible right now to save our jobs" sort of way, they're going to be awful again in 2025.

15) Panthers (5-12 in 2024): In a recent 40's and Free Agents podcast episode, NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah mentioned that players are being pitched to play for teams like the Eagles instead of other teams around the league who comparatively get very little attention.

"I was talking to a coach about certain teams and organizations, the Eagles being one of them," Jeremiah said. "And this was the great point that he brought up. If you're gonna go on one of these one-year "prove it" deals, he was like, 'Do you want to go to a 1:00 Sunday team?' I won't throw the team he mentioned under the bus, but he mentioned one of those NFC South teams, and he was like, 'You wanna go there? Play at 1:00 every Sunday?'

"Or you can go to a team like the Eagles, be on the national stage, you're in the 4:00 window, you're playing Sunday night, Monday night, big stages, big games, everybody's watching, everybody's paying attention. Your seven sacks you get with the Philadelphia Eagles can end up being more valuable than the seven sacks you might get in the NFC South, is what he was mentioning. I don't know if a lot of people think like that, but I'm telling you that message is being sent to players to try to entice them on these short-term deals."

The NFC South team Jeremiah did not want to throw under the bus is clearly the Panthers lol.

14) Saints (5-12 in 2024): NFC South records the last three seasons:

I think it's safe to say that Saints fans are done with Derek Carr as their quarterback:

I just witnessed Derek Carr selling crack uptown @FBI @Saints

— biasedpels (@CarrRuinedMe) March 21, 2025

Anyway, the Falcons, Saints, and Panthers are all likely to be bad again in 2025.

13) 49ers (6-11 in 2024): The Super Bowl the 49ers lost was just 15 months ago. Here were their defensive starters in that game, with players no longer on the team bolded in red:

DE Nick Bosa
DT Arik Armstead
DT Javon Hargrave
DE Chase Young
LB Fred Warner
LB Dre Greenlaw
CB Charvarius Ward
S Tashaun Gipson
S Ji'Ayir Brown
CB Ambry Thomas
CB Deommodore Lenoir

They also lost S Talanoa Hufanga, who was a starter but was on IR for the Super Bowl, plus a bunch of role-playing backups.

On offense they lost starting LG Aaron Banks they traded WR Deebo Samuel, and a bunch of their "star" players may be past their primes. Trent Williams will turn 37 in July, George Kittle will turn 32 in October, and Christian McCaffrey had to travel to Germany to get treatment for "Achilles tendonitis," an injury that kept him out for eight games in 2024. He played in four games, only had 50 carries, and scored no TDs before a posterior cruciate ligament injury ended his season.

And now they have to pay Brock Purdy.

In his eight seasons as the head coach of the 49ers, Kyle Shanahan has had double-digit losses in four them. There's a pretty good chance he'll add a fifth in 2025.

This team fell off a cliff fast.

12) Bears (5-12 in 2024): I love this video, via a Kevin Fishbain appearance on Dianna Russini's podcast, Scoop City:

Ben Johnson is up next, and as Fishbain notes, with a quarterback he did not choose.

11) Falcons (8-9 in 2024): This isn't about the Falcons, because really, who cares, but I just wanted to note that the Atlanta Braves started the season 0-7.

10) Cowboys (7-10 in 2024): A year ago, the Cowboys waited around all offseason to sign QB Dak Prescott and WR CeeDee Lamb to new contracts while lucrative deals got done with other quarterbacks and receivers, pushing Prescott's and Lamb's price tags higher and higher. Did Jerry Jones learn his lesson, with a new contract coming for Micah Parsons this offseason?

Of course he didn't!

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on Micah Parsons’ contract situation: “I don’t view it as urgent, at all.”
On waiting: “I’d rather pay more and get it right.” pic.twitter.com/03clUppLS5

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) April 1, 2025

Oh, and on a side note, with Russell Wilson joining the Giants, all three of the other NFC East quarterbacks have been to the NFC Championship Game, while Prescott — the highest-paid player in the NFL — has not.

9) Seahawks (10-7 in 2024): The Seahawks made the playoffs 14 times from 2003 to 2020. They were consistently contenders during those years. More recently, with Geno Smith at quarterback, they've become mostly harmless — a team that has a chance to maybe make the playoffs with a lucky bounce here or there, but no threat at all to do big things. That's a bad place to be in any sport.

They replaced Geno with a younger version of Geno in Sam Darnold, thus securing their spot in NFL purgatory a while longer.

8) Cardinals (8-9 in 2024): I have no faith whatsoever in this Cardinals defense led by Jonathan Gannon, but they do have something going on offense:

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• Power running game with James Conner, plus a frustrating quarterback you have to chase around all day.

• Decent, young offensive line with a budding star in LT Paris Johnson.

• Legit weapons in the passing game in WR Marvin Harrison Jr. and TE Trey McBride.

They'll have a chance to compete for a divisional title in a shaky NFC West.

7) Vikings (14-3 in 2024): The Vikings have just four picks in the 2025 draft: 24, 97, 139, and 187. They have the lowest draft pick value in the NFL this year. (The Commanders are second-lowest, for the record.)

They traded a lot of their picks in order to draft QB J.J. McCarthy, who missed his rookie season with a torn meniscus, and EDGE Dallas Turner, who had just 21 tackles and three sacks.

6) Packers (11-6 in 2024): At the NFL owners meetings, I was told by a long-time NFL executive that Packers head coach Matt LaFleur and GM Brian Gutekunst were embarrassed that they had to back president Mark Murphy's stance on abolishing the tush push. You can kinda see in the video below that LaFleur is half-heartedly defending his team's position.

It has to absolutely suck to be put in a position to defend your owner's cowardly efforts to ban a play because you couldn't stop it.

5) Commanders (11-6 in 2024): The perception of the Commanders is that they are a young, up-and-coming team, because they had a stellar rookie quarterback last season. They are not. In fact, they have 20 (!) players who are either 30+ years of age, or will be by the time the 2025-2026 Super Bowl is played:

1. LB Nick Bellore: 35
2. LB Bobby Wagner: 34
3. TE Zach Ertz: 34
4. P Tress Way: 34
5. LS Tyler Ott: 33
6. QB Marcus Mariota: 31
7. CB Jonathan Jones: 31
8. DT Eddie Goldman: 31
9. OT Tret Scott: 31
10. CB Kevon Seymour: 31
11. LT Laremy Tunsil: 30
12. OL Andrew Wylie: 30
13. RB Austin Ekeler: 30
14. DL Sheldon Day: 30
15. DL Deatrich Wise: 30
16. WR Terry McLaurin: 29
17. WR Deebo Samuel: 29
18. S Will Harris: 29
19. DL Jalyn Holmes: 29
20. OLB Jacob Martin: 29
21. K Zane Gonzalez: 29

Hm, young star player, surrounded by a bunch of old guys instead of other young players with whom he can grow? Sounds like a loser basketball team we unfortunately know all too well.

4) Buccaneers (10-7 in 2024): The Bucs have now won four straight division titles, which is the longest streak in the NFC:

It pays to be a competent team in the otherwise wretched NFC South.

3) Rams (10-7 in 2024): The Rams are sort of the bizzarro Commanders in terms of age. I think some perceive them to be a older team, because Matthew Stafford is 37. Nope. This team has eight starters — WR Puka Nacua, EDGE Jared Verse, DL Braden Fiske, EDGE Byron Young, DL Kobie Turner, S Kamren Kinchens, LG Steve Avila, and C Beaux Limmer — who were selected either in the 2023 or 2024 drafts.

They're going to have to find an eventual replacement for Stafford, but they have a nice core to build around. If they can somehow find a good quarterback on a rookie contract in a year or two, they're going to be dangerous.

2) Lions (15-2 in 2024): The Lions had the worst injury luck in the NFL on the defensive side of the ball in 2024, with 86.5 "adjusted games lost." Of course, I use the word "luck" lightly, seeing as the Lions had a hard training camp, hard practices during the season, and chose not to take advantage of opportunities to rest starters in a meaningless game late in the season.

So, the operating theory is that they'll be healthier in 2025, but are they going to change what they do?

Also, they lost both of their coordinators.

1) Eagles (Super Bowl champions in 2024): At the time the Eagles were up 40-6 in the Super Bowl, they had a playoff point differential of +84. If they hadn't called off the dogs and put backups in, +84 would've been the second-best playoff point differential in the Super Bowl era. After the Chiefs scored two meaningless TDs, they dropped to 8th all-time:

It should be noted that the Eagles played four playoff games to win the Super Bowl in 2024, while most of the above teams played three. On the one hand, yes, the extra game gave them an opportunity to pile on a bigger point differential. On the other hand, it also made their trek through the playoffs more difficult.

Here's what the top playoff point differentials look like over the last 20 years.

As you can see, the Eagles team that lost the Super Bowl in 2022 finished second.

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