The AFC North has become the NFL’s hottest mess

It’s difficult to quantify what a colossal letdown the AFC North has been this season, and it’s not really the fault of the teams. What was billed as the league’s best, most-competitive division has devolved into total chaos as teams have a combined 7-9 record entering Week 5, rivaling only the AFC South (7-9) and NFC South (6-10) in ineptitude.

Lets dive into the stupidity of the division in 2025 by looking at some core elements to each team which make this AFC North such a spectacular, weird failure.

Congrats to the Steelers for being the food at the questionable buffet least-likely to give you e coli. This is not a good football team — at all. They’re the only team with a winning record in the NFL that has a negative point differential this season, scoring 96 points and allowing 98 on the year.

There’s no shame in playing the schedule you’ve got, but this is an organization who have beat the Jets, Vikings, and Patriots en route to their winning record — teams who combine for 0.333 on the year. If you want to believe that having a winning record right now makes Pittsburgh good, then more power to you. I also enjoy having blind faith in things that are objectively false, like the idea of winning Powerball.

Aaron Rodgers is total fool’s gold this season. Despite having a traditional passer rating of 102.6, he has a QBR of 45.9 — which is 23rd in the NFL and a delta of -56.7 between the two rating metrics. Rodgers absolutely padded his stats with a four touchdown performance, and the only time he faced a decent defense in Seattle he was atrocious.

The Steelers are 26th in passing, 31st in rushing — while on defense they’re 29th in passing yards allowed, and 28th in both first downs gained, and first downs allowed.

This is your leader in the AFC North. The Steelers are butt.

The Bengals are absolutely incredible, and not in a good way. This team was mediocre before Joe Burrow was injured, and now that he’s out they’re astonishingly awful.

Zac Taylor might be the least-talented head coach in the NFL, and without his All-Pro quarterback the team is absolute garbage. The Bengals have been dogwalked by the Vikings and Broncos in the past two weeks, and before that they struggled against the Jaguars and Browns.

The core issue is that Taylor is totally out of his depth when he doesn’t have Burrow to make him look good. Jake Browning is a terrible quarterback, but they haven’t made life easier for him by ostensibly running the same plays devised for Burrow, but with Browning under center. The team is running the ball terribly, making Chase Brown’s breakout season look like a paper tiger — and there’s nothing going right on defense as the Bengals have allowed 119 points. Only the Ravens, Saints, Cowboys, and Titans have allowed more.

Cincinnati will not win a single football team until Burrow is back. It’s that simple.

The Ravens are a mess without Lamar Jackson, and despite having a 1-3 record they’re still the best team in the AFC North and it isn’t even close. It’s been a brutal start to the year for Baltimore as they’ve faced the Bills, Lions, and Chiefs in their three losses, all top-tier teams.

That’s where the compliments end, because the Ravens are total butt on defense this season.

A normally-stout unit has totally evaporated in 2025, allowing a league-high 33.3 points-per-game. You could chalk part of that up to the competition they’ve faced, but it doesn’t explain away why the Ravens are 31st in passing yards allowed, 27th in rushing yards allowed — and second-to-last in the NFL in total yards allowed.

Baltimore was bad against the pass last year too, but it was less pronounced because they were the No. 1 rush defense team in the NFL. This year, it’s all just a mess. The saving grace for this team has been it’s high-powered scoring offense, but without Jackson that evaporates.

It’s now a question of whether the Ravens can dig themselves out of the hole created early in the season. Week by week this is looking worse and worse.

Oh Cleveland, our sweet summer child. It takes an unbelievable level of talent to have the NFL’s best defense by a significant margin, and still lose the way the Browns are capable of losing.

The switch has happened at QB with the Browns pulling the plug on Joe Flacco, which wasn’t intended to be an old joke — but here we are. Flacco was godawful under center for the Browns, throwing two touchdowns and six interceptions. Now it’s Dillon Gabriel’s job, and Shedeur Sanders is locked in third on the chart, not getting a chance to play at all.

This is a defense that really doesn’t allow yards, but the offense has been so bad that they’re constantly on the back foot defending the red zone. The Browns are 1st in yards-per-attempt in run defense, 1oth in yards-per-attempt in pass defense, but 24th in points allowed. It’s not a sustainable way to play football, and if Gabriel can be slightly better than passable then this team will be drastically better.

Hats off to Myles Garrett who has been a wrecking ball this season, even by his standards. He’s on pace for 17.0 sacks, and an astonishing 34 tackles for loss this year. He spends as much time in the backfield as some opposing quarterbacks, and is willing the Browns into contention — even when they appear out of games.

This is still a team with a fundamental QB problems. We knew this would be an issue for them, and it has been.

It’s all a function of two factors: When can people get healthy and will Dillon Gabriel be good at all?

All hail the AFC North. Football’s biggest mess.