Field Gulls
The 2025 season is almost upon us, but with the lull between the last meaningful practice and Week 1, it’s still a bit of “listicle” season around the NFL world. Well folks, Ben Solak and ESPN just released one of the weirdest lists you’ll ever see.
They’re calling it the 2025 Watchability Ranking, and it’s quite a trip.
Ben Solak has not liked the Seattle Seahawks this offseason, and spoiler alert, what follows is no different. Actually, now that I think about it, this might just be your classic East Coast Bias geographically-based partiality. Three NFC West teams make up the bottom six.
Here’s the criteria, you decide.
Watchability is also about intrigue. Teams get watchability bumps if they have new young quarterbacks or interesting coaching changes, and they get watchability demerits if they’re the Kansas City Chiefs and everyone knows the outcomes of the games anyway.
Specific measurable categories include:
Before we get to the Seahawks, here’s the top 10 in order:
The major issues I have with this top of the list are the Bengals, Buccaneers, Jaguars and Raiders. The Cincinnati Bengals are just not interesting anymore. Joe Burrow is old news, and their inability to play defense is no longer fun to watch.
Here’s what Solak said about the Seahawks, who found their way all the way down at the 4th-least-watchable team in the NFL.
From Weeks 7 to 14 of 2024, the Jets gave up 37, 25, 13, 31, 28, 26, and 32 points. Never mind the fact that he also compared Sam Darnold to the 40-year-old and incredibly medicated Aaron Rodgers, the defense was not elite and these teams are not similar.
I think it’s only fair, since we do our fair sure of critiquing ill-compiled ESPN lists, to take a stab at it on my own. It is heavily biased and equally subject to scrutiny, and I have already forgotten what the criteria categories are that I typed above. Please enjoy.
