With the Philadelphia Eagles gearing up to defend their Super Bowl victory and the league’s other 31 teams hungry to dethrone the reigning champs, former All-Pro cornerback Chris Harris Jr. has picked the Detroit Lions as his favorite contender from the field to unseat the Eagles in 2025.
Chris Harris Jr. Sees Lions, Commanders, Rams as Eagles’ Biggest Challengers in NFC
Harris is uniquely qualified to weigh in on the Eagles, having won Super Bowl 50 with the Denver Broncos in a similar fashion to Philadelphia’s defeat of the Kansas City Chiefs this past season — with an absolutely stifling defense.
Along with the Lions, who finished the 2024 regular season as the NFC’s No. 1 seed, Harris also pegged the upstart Washington Commanders and grizzled Los Angeles Rams as secondary and tertiary threats, respectively, to the Eagles’ conference-title hopes in 2025.
“The Rams number three with [Matthew] Stafford, he’s always a tough quarterback in the playoffs right? You’ve always got to deal with what they’re gonna bring, him and [head coach] Sean McVay. Hopefully, they can get a running game that can be consistent,” Harris said on NFL Network.
This offseason, the Rams added All-Pro wide receiver Davante Adams and former Oregon TE Terrance Ferguson to their stacked skill-position arsenal that also includes Stafford, WR Puka Nacua and RB Kyren Williams, with the latter scoring 31 total touchdowns in the last two seasons.
That group led the Rams to the 11th-best grade in PFSN’s Offense+ metric last season. Their defense has room to grow, however, having finished just 24th in PFSN’s 2024 Defense+ ratings.
“Now, I’ve got the Commanders. When you’ve got to see [quarterback] Jayden Daniels, I like [cornerback] Marshon Lattimore being picked up over there, hopefully they get some more weapons, but they’re tough to beat,” he continued. “We’ve seen how they got hot at the end of the year. Nobody wants to see Jayden Daniels in the playoffs.”
Daniels, who was named 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year, led the Commanders to a Cinderella postseason run last season, upsetting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Lions en route to the NFC Championship, marking the franchise’s deepest playoff run since they won the Super Bowl in 1991.
Since then, the Commanders have added five-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil to keep Daniels’ jersey clean, as well as former San Francisco 49ers gadget receiver Deebo Samuel to do the dirty work in the pass game. They also bulked up their offensive line in the draft, taking Oregon OT Josh Conerly Jr. with their first-round pick.
Even before those additions, Washington managed to record the sixth-best Offense+ rating in both the regular season and playoffs in 2024, behind just a select few elite teams, including the top-rated Lions.
“The Lions. This team was a dominant regular-season team, even though they got upset at home last year [in the playoffs]. They’re going to bring all their guys back. They missed 10 starters on defense and were still one of the top defensive teams in the league,” Harris continued.
“So, you bring back Aidan Hutchinson, and you’ve seen what those guys can do without him last year, they’re going to be tough to beat, so I’ve got the Lions being that team to challenge the Eagles.”
.@ChrisHarrisJr believes that the Lions will be the biggest threat to the Eagles in the NFC this season. pic.twitter.com/hDPRLU85vf
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) May 23, 2025
As for the Eagles, they continued emphasizing their already stout defense by using their first five selections in the 2025 NFL Draft on defensive players, including Alabama linebacker Jihaad Campbell and Texas safety Andrew Mukuba.
Tacking those guys on to a unit that finished 2024 as PFSN’s second-graded team per the Defense+ metric is a scary sight for opposing NFC QBs. Not to mention, they extended RB Saquon Barkley for another couple of years.
So, while it will undoubtedly be an uphill battle to take down the defending champs, teams like the Lions, Commanders, Rams, and others are certainly poised — and chomping at the bit — to do so.