Sportsnaut
Our weekly NFL defense rankings examine every unit across the league to determine the best defenses in the NFL. With the preseason wrapped up, let’s dive into our evaluations for the worst and best NFL defenses this season. We’ll update our NFL defense rankings, with analysis on all 32 teams, every Sunday night each week.
The good news is that the Carolina Panthers defense won’t be historically bad anymore. With that said, this still projects to be the worst defense in the NFL this season. There are two blue-chip talents in defensive tackle Derrick Brown, who missed most of last season, and cornerback Jaycee Horn. Unfortunately with Horn, durability has been an issue throughout his career. We do like the addition of safety Tre’von Moehrig, but there’s only so much a player of his caliber can do. With significant talent and depth issues at edge rusher, linebacker and corner, it will take phenomenal work from Ejiro Evero for this to even be a top-25 defense.
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In Jeffery Simmons and T’Vondre Sweat, the Tennessee Titans have one of the best defensive tackle duos in the AFC. At safety, Amani Hooker and Xavier Woods form a stable tandem. Unfortunately, that is about where the positives end for the personnel that defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson has to work with. Simmons and Sweat will disrupt a few drives, but the numerous holes at every other level of this defense will produce far more lowlights. That’s what happens when the front office pours offseason resources into building a better offense around its rookie quarterback. On the bright side, a more stable offense indirectly helps the defense.
The Cincinnati Bengals desperately need Trey Hendrickson on the field. They still had one of the worst defenses in the NFL in 2024, even with him playing at a Defensive Player of the Year-caliber level. If he misses regular-season games, this could be a historically bad unit. Even when Hendrickson is on the field for Cincinnati, the team remains weak at off-ball linebacker, and nothing we have seen from the secondary suggests meaningful improvement is on the horizon. With Hendrickson playing all 17 games, Cincinnati probably lands at No. 26 in our NFL defense rankings.
Related: Game-by-Game Cincinnati Bengals Predictions 2025
New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Brandon Staley has a well-earned reputation for not prioritizing run defense. So, it feels safe to predict that New Orleans will have one of the worst run defenses in the NFL in 2025. Beyond that, Father Time has caught up to Cameron Jordan and Demario Davis, turning them from premier talents into merely quality starters. The Saints also have one of the weakest cornerback trios in football, and their front ranked 30th in ESPN’s pass-rush win rate (31 percent) last year. Add a sluggish offense to the mix, and you have all the ingredients for a bottom-five defense.
