2025 NFL Team of the Week Recap: Puka Nacua, Jonathan Taylor Lead the Way

All season, we've put together an NFL "Team of the Week" on Sunday nights, collecting the best performances at key positions as a window into the weekend that was (or wasn't) for 32 NFL teams.

Initially, it had an offensive tilt — one quarterback, two running backs, two receivers and a tight end. But in Week 10, we expanded it to have more than just a fantasy football cross-section, adding a team's offensive line, two defensive linemen or edge rushers, a linebacker, a defensive back and a special teams standout.

Every week, there are difficult decisions — yes, your guy had a great week and was strongly considered — and after this Sunday night, we can finally look back on the 2025 season and tabulate which players earned our weekly honors the most.

So, which players made the Team of the Week the most? Let's dive in. 

QB: Josh Allen, Bills, and Matthew Stafford, Rams (3)

Somewhat incredibly, we had 10 different winners in the first 10 weeks of the season, with no repeats until Allen, who won in Week 1 and did so again in Week 11. Allen and Stafford each won three times, the most of any quarterbacks, and they won a combined five times in the final nine weeks of the season. Close behind with two wins each were the Patriots' Drake Maye and the Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence, who won twice each.

We tallied up the totals for 18 quarterback winners, and they combined for 64 passing touchdowns against three interceptions, a solid season among the 11 quarterbacks honored. And just for fun, we checked to see which defenses gave up the most winning performances — the Ravens, Buccaneers and Jets had two each against them.

RB: Jonathan Taylor, Colts (4)

In the first half of the season, it seemed Taylor could make the team nearly every week. We pick two running backs each week, and he made it four times in the first 10 weeks, enough to have the most even without a pick in the final two months. Close behind with three honors each were the 49ers' Christian McCaffrey, the Falcons' Bijan Robinson and the Panthers' Rico Dowdle. The three times Dowdle was honored were clustered in a span of five games from Weeks 5-9. We'll also mention three two-time winners in the Ravens' Derrick Henry, Raiders rookie Ashton Jeanty and the Lions' Jahmyr Gibbs.

We had 23 different backs honored in 36 opportunities, and some weeks, it was tempting to highlight an unexpected star who just popped in for a career day, like Commanders rookie Jacory Croskey-Merritt in Week 5, the Bucs' Sean Tucker in Week 11, the Packers' Emanuel Wilson in Week 12 and the Bills' Ray Davis in Week 18. 

WR: Puka Nacua, Rams (5)

No surprise here. Nacua was prolific all season and made our team five times, the most of any player at any position. He did so three weeks in a row between Weeks 14 and 16. In the worst of those three games, Nacua was still good for 167 yards. 

We'll give a shoutout to five receivers who made it three times each — the Seahawks' Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the Bengals' Ja'Marr Chase, the Lions' Amon-Ra St. Brown, the Cowboys' George Pickens and the Saints' Chris Olave. Those six accounted for 20 of 36 honors at receiver, with three two-timers in the Eagles' A.J. Brown, the Falcons' Drake London and Bucs rookie Emeka Egbuka.

TE: Brock Bowers, Raiders (3)

Bowers missed four games with injuries this year and still had the most weeks on our team among tight ends with three. Five other tight ends were two-time picks — the Cardinals' Trey McBride, who set the single-season all-time tight end record for catches, as well as the Falcons' Kyle Pitts, the Eagles' Dallas Goedert, the Packers' Tucker Kraft and the Patriots' Hunter Henry.

Offensive line: Detroit Lions (2)

We expanded the team in Week 10 and started honoring an entire offensive line each week, and only one team got the nod more than once: the Lions, who did so in Weeks 10 and 12. This is a difficult choice each week, but it usually reflects dominance, either in a workload of a running game or a pristine day in pass protection. Of the nine winners, only three didn't end up as playoff teams — the Lions and the Ravens, who barely missed.

Defense: Myles Garrett, DE, Browns; Micah Parsons, LB, Packers (2)

Similar to the offensive line, we began to include specific defensive positions in our Team of the Week column in Week 10. We spread the defensive honors around nearly perfectly. We picked nine different linebackers and nine different defensive backs in the nine weeks we included them on our team. Picking two defensive linemen or edges each week, we still had only two repeat winners, with Garrett in Weeks 11 and 12 and Parsons in Weeks 11 and 13. Given a full season of honors, both would have a few more each in dominant seasons as Garrett set the single-season sack record and Parsons logged 12.5 sacks in 14 games before tearing his ACL. 

ST: Rashid Shaheed, Seahawks (2)

We also began honoring special teams players in Team of the Week beginning in Week 10, picking one specialist each week. 

Our weekly special-teams honor was split fairly evenly — four kickers, five returners in our nine weeks there, and the lone repeat winner was Seattle's Rasheed Shaheed, who won in Week 14 and 16 on the way to a Pro Bowl and likely All-Pro season. Shaheed had a return for a touchdown in each of the weeks he was honored. 

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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