2025 NFC West preview
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2025
⏱️ 119 minutes
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Summary
Every team in the NFC West has a win total over/under of 8.5 or better. The Rams are the favorite, but their quarterback has been hurt all summer. The 49ers have institutional power, but they went 6-11 last year and have undergone serious change. There's justifiable optimism for the Seahawks and Cardinals, with easy-to-see downsides, as well. In short, if there's one division that could finish in literally any order, one through four, it's this one. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman dive deep into all four NFC West teams on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
6:07 Los Angeles Rams season preview
41:08 Seattle Seahawks season preview
1:09:32 Arizona Cardinals season preview
1:38:58 San Francisco 49ers season preview
Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Producer: Michael Beller
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Change isn't coming. It's already here. Commerce is going digital and tax complexity is multiplying. |
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| 0:47.8 | The Disney Lullaby playlist. Listen now. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:57.4 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:58.4 | It's the NFC West preview today. |
| 1:01.2 | Really interesting division. |
| 1:02.8 | A lot of really good teams. |
| 1:04.0 | I mean, every single one of these teams, they can make an argument about making the playoffs, |
| 1:07.7 | potentially even winning the division. |
| 1:09.5 | We talked about that at the top of the show and just how high the relative expectations are for the NFC West compared to nearly every other division in the NFL. |
| 1:19.2 | Really enjoyed that conversation with Derek Klesson and Dave Hellman. |
| 1:22.4 | Let's get to it right now. |
| 1:29.9 | Routing toward the home stretch here, two more division previews left on the athletic |
| 1:34.8 | football show. |
| 1:35.6 | We will finish things off with the AFC North tomorrow. |
| 1:39.3 | Today, it is the NFC West. |
| 1:42.4 | Derek, we talked about this a little bit earlier today when you, me and |
| 1:44.9 | Dave, were kind of kicking around just general thoughts about this division, expectations. |
| 1:49.6 | Every team in this division has an over-under, a preseason over under of at least eight and a |
| 1:53.5 | half, which makes the expectations for this division collectively, as we were talking about |
| 1:57.9 | what success feels like, every team is like, you better make the playoffs. Based on how you're coming into the season, you better make the playoffs. And the only division where I think that's the same deal, where all four teams have that kind of discourse around them heading into the year, is probably the NFC North. And so I think that's why there is a ton of intrigue about what the NFC West ultimately looks like in 2025. Yeah, this to me was like by far the most difficult division to nail down all of the like, what is success that we're going to talk about at the end for all of these teams. Because at least with like the NFC North, that is also a pretty loaded division. But the timelines and the expectations, even if all those teams are good, felt a little clear to me. |
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