The players and coaches defining the 2025 NFL season
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's a familiar refrain in sports media. "You can't tell the story of SPORTS TOPIC without talking about FAMOUS PLAYER/COACH." Well, who are the players and coaches without whom the story of the 2025 season would be incomplete? Old friend Nate Tice joins Robert Mays to highlight those players and coaches on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Rundown (timestamps are approximate)
3:45 Reggie Gilliam, Jackson Hawes, and the new-look Bills run game
14:20 Ben Johnson, Joe Thuney, Darnell Wright, Dan Rousher, and the new-look Bears run game
24:00 Talanoa Hufanga making an already-great Broncos defense even better
32:17 Kyle Hamilton, the Ravens fixer
43:03 Chris Shula and the transformation of the Rams
54:17 Josh McDaniels, Klayton Adams, and the rise of cohesive offenses
1:01:38 Tony Sparano Jr. changing the game for the Colts offense
1:08:21 Daniel Jones is the coolest story in the league
Host: Robert Mays
With: Nate Tice
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Video Producer: Katy Duffy
Audio Producer: Michael Beller
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Nate on Bluesky: @natetice.bsky.social
Follow Robert on X: @robertmays
Follow Nate on X: @Nate_Tice
Theme song: Haunted
Written by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love Songs
Courtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the athletic football show. |
| 0:05.1 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:06.1 | We got a fun one on tap today. |
| 0:07.9 | Our old friend Nate Tice is here to do a little bit of a midseason check-in. |
| 0:11.7 | We did a little home-in home this week. |
| 0:13.5 | I did mid-season awards over on the football 301 feed. |
| 0:16.0 | And we wanted to do kind of a mid-season perspective on the way the NFL season has kind of gone up to |
| 0:23.3 | this point. |
| 0:24.1 | We didn't want to do awards. |
| 0:25.2 | We wanted to do something that was a little bit broader and more abstract than that. |
| 0:28.5 | So we picked 10 guys that we think of just shaped the NFL nine weeks into the season. |
| 0:33.7 | I wanted to do this kind of as a way to celebrate people who might not be in line for some of these awards, but also just coaches, other people who have made the league feel the way |
| 0:43.0 | that it has felt over the first half of the 2025 season. So Nate and I each picked five guys, |
| 0:48.9 | landed on 10 characters that have kind of dictated NFL football in 2025. Really, really fun conversation. |
| 0:56.0 | Had a great time. |
| 0:56.7 | Hope you guys will as well. |
| 0:57.8 | Let's get to it right now. |
| 1:04.0 | Time now for the second half of our little home and home podcast situation that we've |
| 1:09.6 | done this week. |
| 1:10.4 | I was on football 301 doing |
| 1:12.1 | midseason awards yesterday and he is here to do our own version of a little midseason check in |
| 1:18.3 | today. It is our old friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. Great to see you back |
... |
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