NFL players, coaches, GMs under most pressure in 2025 season

July typically means the start of two things in the NFL: training camps and contract extension season. While players sign throughout the year, teams’ desire to have happy players in place for camp and the franchise tag deadline can lead to a surge of deals in July. Over the past two weeks alone, T.J. Watt, Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson and Trey Smith have all signed extensions, in addition to a bevy of second-round picks coming to terms on their rookie deals.

The run of deals and the start of camp has me thinking about the people who have the most to gain or lose for how they perform during the 2025 season. The NFL can feel like a league in which everybody is one season or even one bad stretch of play away from getting benched or fired, but it’s also a league in which one positive stretch can flip things the other way. Kellen Moore was essentially let go in back-to-back jobs as the offensive coordinator for the Cowboys and Chargers, landed in Philadelphia, had a great season and earned the head coaching job with the Saints. Shane Waldron went from offensive coordinator of the league’s most promising rookie quarterback this time last year to the Jaguars’ passing game coordinator. Things move fast.

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Let’s run through some of the players, coaches and executives who have more riding on what happens this season than anybody else. There are players who will get paid either way: Barring something catastrophic, C.J. Stroud is looking at a record deal for a quarterback next offseason, regardless of whether he’s the fifth- or 20th-best passer in the league. Some…