April 10, 2025
By Ian Toner

Award winners have moved to rival teams and new divisions. Record holders have embarked on new chapters. A new wave of international talent has flooded the zone. Past league and division champions have reloaded with eyes on the 2025 prize. Organizations have left, reformed and been assigned to new divisions. And league and franchise icons have retired and stepped away for the 2025 season and beyond.

In a sense, some of these developments were inevitable. In the pressure-packed environment of professional sports, full of competitive players and leaders hungry for edges and wins and improvement, change is constant.

Now that 2025 rosters have been released, outstanding player movement will be minimal. Teams have ratcheted up practice schedules. Players have dialed in training regimens. Coaches are experimenting with lineups and depth charts in mini camps and exhibition games. Two weeks from now, we’ll get our first look into how all this change and preparation translates into on field results (or doesn’t).

After months of conversations with players, coaches and owners (and listening to other reporting and analysis from UFA colleagues), here are the biggest questions in my mind for each division before 2025’s opening pull takes flight.

EAST: Will Boston Live Up To Its Hype?

The Boston Glory have reached the playoffs in the daunting East Division for two consecutive seasons. The team shocked the New York Empire in July, handing that dynasty just its second playoff loss since 2018. Reigning two-time MVP Jeff Babbitt is back in Boston with the same cast of on-field characters and coaches that reached the 2024 East Division Championship Game, including the likes of Peter Boerth, Simon Carapella, Orion Cable, Tannor Johnson-Go, and Ben Sadok. And Boston acquired "Rookie Of The Year" Tobe Decraene from Montreal and ironman Ethan Fortin from the Empire.

In short, Boston’s stock is trending up and to the right. Factor in New York’s turnover (losing Elliott Chartock, Charles Weinberg, Bretton Tan, and the Drost brothers but integrating Oliver Fay, Everest Shapiro, and Max Sheppard) and DC’s transitions (balancing the losses of Jonny Malks, and Troy Holland against the signings of Christian Boxley and Aidan Downey), and there’s a case to be made that the Glory are the East Division favorites heading into 2025.

They’ll have plenty of opportunities to cultivate and test their mettle in the regular season, with three fixtures against DC and two against New York on their 2025 slate. Boston won’t need to run the table there, and a losing record in those five contests wouldn’t spell doom. But the year-over-year momentum, growing chemistry and new additions have created the potential–and dare I say, expectation–for this franchise to take its biggest step forward and qualify for Championship Weekend.

CENTRAL: Can Chicago coalesce into a champion?

The Central Division has lacked a decisive, dominant team since Madison’s magnificent era crescendoed with its 2018 title. While Chicago and Minnesota have represented the division at Championship Weekend twice since then, only Minnesota has brought home a trophy.

The table is set for Chicago to etch Union into the UFA championship trophy for the first time. From Championship Weekend veterans to all-world talents, Nate Goff, Pawel Janas, Jace Bruner, Daan De Marrée, and Paul Arters have (re-)united with a singular focus on winning it all. Former foes like Xavier Payne, William Wettengel, and Victor Luo have joined forces with that goal in mind, too. The roster is not quite the superteam that was the 2016 Dallas Roughnecks, but it’s giving some of that energy, and so many 2025 Union players and coaches have been so close to a professional title in the past (see Chicago’s 2021 league semifinal loss and 2022 league final loss).

“I don’t know what my future will look like beyond this year with the team,” coach Dave Woods, sharing the reins with Chicago veteran Charlie Furse in 2025, said to me in December. “I’m excited. It feels like a last dance type of situation. Let’s try to make a run together.”

Still, a talented roster on paper does not an on field champion make. The challenge before Woods and Furse will involve finding the optimal lineup combinations, depth chart orientations and strategic levers to get the most value out of this group. And the players share responsibility in building trust and chemistry to be able to execute against divisional rivals (and the rest of the league) when the pressure is highest.

(Speaking of those divisional rivals, Madison will be hungry to prove that its 2024 overtime playoff victory was the dawn of a new era of Madison magic. Minnesota, which added Justin Burnett and James Pollard among others, will take the field with confidence of having won a league championship in the last year. For good measure, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis will have the benefit of underdog status all season long, eager to show that their all-star departures won’t limit their capabilities.)

Of course, much of Chicago’s core has plenty of continuity and experience from previous Union and amateur club seasons. But getting the roster healthy, aligned and in top form when the expectations are highest is no easy task.

SOUTH: Will Atlanta exorcise its playoff demons?

Fans know the history at this point. Atlanta has lost games to go to Championship Weekend in three of the last four seasons and is still searching for its first Championship Weekend berth. The 2023 and 2024 losses on home turf were particularly excruciating given the fashion of the Hustle’s mistakes down the stretch.

Two weeks from the 2025 season start, the South Division is Atlanta’s for the taking.

The Carolina Flyers have taken a step back on paper. Sure, the Triangle ultimate hotbed can always replenish a professional roster with inspiring talent (see adding Rutledge Smith, among others). But the departures of Tobias Brooks, Henry Fisher, Anders Juengst, and Sol Yanuck, along with Mike Avila taking over the coaching reins from Mike DeNardis, are hard to ignore or minimize.

San Diego has added World Games and other talent and can certainly ruffle feathers in the division. But Los Angeles and Austin have lost too much, in my view, to meaningfully challenge Atlanta. And though Houston should be buoyed by its veteran additions, the Havoc need more depth and experience to be able to hang with the Hustle consistently.

While Atlanta lost some of its own important pieces, including Justin Burnett, Aidan Downey, Bobby Ley, and Matt Smith, it has bolstered its lineup with 2024 goals leader Alec Wilson Holliday, all-time leading scorer Cameron Brock and Shred all-time yardage leader Sean Connole. Its top four 2024 plus-minus leaders–Jeremy Langdon, 2024 MVP finalist Brett Hulsmeyer, Austin Taylor, and Hayden Austin-Knab–are back on the attack, along with other key defensive presences.

No one’s suggesting that Carolina, San Diego or anyone else will roll over for the Hustle in the regular season or the playoffs. And Atlanta’s leadership has worked to engineer another schedule that will challenge the Hustle with special interdivisional bouts throughout the regular season.

Given the history here and the titanic talent assembled in the A, anything short of a Championship Weekend appearance will represent underachievement for Tuba Benson-Jaja’s squad.

WEST: Which Colorado team will show up?

Players and coaches with world championship, amateur club championship, and college semifinal experience have filled Summit rosters for years.

Bursting onto the scene in 2022, Colorado claimed the West Division crown en route to its only Championship Weekend berth.

Since then, Colorado got upset on home turf in the first round of the 2023 playoffs and failed to qualify in 2024.

Despite possessing so much talent, over the last two seasons, the team has struggled to find offensive consistency and rotated many players in and out of central handler positions and the offensive line from game to game.

A number of franchise D-line icons departed this offseason, but the available offensive selection list grew with adding Tobias Brooks, Keenan Laurence and others.

So which group will we see in 2025? The one reminiscent of 2022, with commitment and consistency across its lines…or the one reminiscent of 2023 or 2024, with lineup uncertainty and groups needing to form chemistry on the job every few games?

If the Summit show up like it did in 2022, Colorado should return to the playoffs and arguably be the favorite to represent the West at Championship Weekend. Should their commitment and cohesion falter, the division could be wide open. After all, Seattle shocked the division last season and brings back much of that crew. Salt Lake will be running and gunning to grow from last year’s playoff upset and expand the roles of its returners. And Oakland can’t be overlooked, with new leadership, a maturing core, momentum from 2024’s playoff berth and an influx of experienced Bay Area talent.