We’ve been through pre-announcements and announcements, slow marketing reveals and heavy yields of information, all in the name of unveiling the whos, whats, whys, whens and wheres of the 2025 NFL schedule.
And now we must announce the following: Not all schedules are created equally. So, while nobody will win or lose a game for another six months, we are still going to declare some early winners and losers of Wednesday’s grand schedule reveal.
WINNERS
Dublin up
Vikings, as they’re wont to do, found loopholes in their adversaries’ strategies before traveling overseas to conquer those lands.
It’s basically the same thing here. NFC North teams have nine road games this season, but the Minnesota Vikings are taking two of them with back-to-back trips in Weeks 4 and 5 to face the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin and the Cleveland Browns in London. While it’s a long way to travel, there are advantages to taking up the NFL on its international amenities.
Teams that do it right can come out of it with a bonding experience. The Vikings may have found a unique advantage by volunteering to travel abroad.
San Francisco treat
The San Francisco 49ers’ rivals didn’t feel bad for them during their injury-marred 2024 season, but the Niners are finally catching a break right now. They’ve got the easiest strength of schedule (.415) in the league based on their opponents’ winning percentage from 2024. Last season, they finished with the hardest schedule (.564).
The Niners can thank the rotational draw of the NFC South and the AFC South. A last-place finish in 2024 also yielded games against the Chicago Bears, New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts.
It’s all right there for the Niners to bounce back in a big way in 2025.
Week 1 in prime time
The league threw four haymakers to launch the prime-time schedule, as the Philadelphia Eagles host the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday; the Kansas City Chiefs meet the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil on Friday; the Baltimore Ravens visit the Buffalo Bills on Sunday; and the Bears host the Vikings on Monday.
Rest up and take it easy on the cholesterol the week before. That’ll be a fun stretch to open the season.
Bengals staying close
The Cincinnati Bengals could skip the chartered flights and rent a bus for the season. Actually, it’d be a nice way to cut costs and pay for Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and maybe even Trey Hendrickson’s contracts.
Anyway, the Bengals travel a league-low 8,753 miles this season, nearly 2,000 fewer miles than the next-ranked Buffalo Bills. And they’re traveling nearly 30,000 fewer miles than the league-leading Los Angeles Chargers. To put that in perspective, the distance around the equator is 24,901 miles, so the Chargers could do a lap around the planet and still have enough gas in the tank to complete the Bengals’ travel slate.
LOSERS
New York Giants’ early gauntlet
The Giants have the most difficult strength of schedule based on their opponents’ winning percentage (.574) from last season, but that’s hardly the full story. They open with road games against the Washington Commanders and Cowboys — home openers for both division rivals — before hosting the Chiefs and Chargers.
The Giants will be likely underdogs throughout that early gauntlet, and it’ll be a challenge to find optimism within that early slate after their 9-25 record over the past two seasons. There’s a real chance for an 0-4 start that would make life pretty stressful for coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen.
This paves the way for the Giants to open the season with Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston at quarterback before finding a smooth landing spot for rookie Jaxson Dart. But after the private planes circled MetLife Stadium last season looking for heads to roll and the endless stream of questions over the future of the regime, how much chaos will Dart have to endure when making his debut?
Little Giants
Big Blue aren’t the only group with a tough run, but they stick out because of their recent struggles. The next 11 teams with the most difficult schedules involve nine reigning playoff teams, including both Super Bowl participants, along with the Bears and Cowboys, who are expected to improve under new head coaches.
Itching for a little optimism? Of the six teams with the hardest strength of schedule entering the 2024 season, five made the playoffs, though the Bills were the only team to advance to the conference championship. The other three conference finalists — Eagles, Chiefs and Commanders — had schedules that ranked in the middle of the pack.
Los Angeles Chargers going long
The Chargers travel 37,086 miles next season, leading the league in distance traveled for the second year in a row. But they only traversed 26,803 miles in 2024.
They’re traveling 2,234 more miles than the Los Angeles Rams. (Hey, maybe there’s a theme here.) And they travel at least 10,000 more miles than 26 teams.
Surely, it doesn’t help the Chargers that they’re heading to Brazil to “host” the Chiefs, and those long flights to play the Giants, Miami Dolphins and Jacksonville Jaguars add up.
Chiefs’ friends and family
The Chiefs understand a quirky schedule comes with the territory of experiencing so much success, so they wouldn’t have it any other way. They’ve got a league-high seven prime-time games and another standalone game on Thanksgiving.
They open in Brazil against the Chargers, visit the Cowboys on Thanksgiving and host the Denver Broncos on Christmas. They’re the only team to draw both holidays and an international game.
The Cowboys and Detroit Lions also double dip on Thanksgiving and Christmas, so they’re expanding their traditional holiday slate. Good luck to the families planning around football.
Broken spotlight
Quarterback Cam Ward, the No. 1 pick in the draft, and the Tennessee Titans didn’t get any love from the schedule makers. They won’t play a single game in prime time.
For a league hellbent on promoting its quarterbacks, that’s a pretty shocking statement. Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars and Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers only got one prime-time game.
The Browns and New Orleans Saints were also shut out of prime time, but that’s not as surprising. If Shedeur Sanders comes on for the Browns, though, the flex schedule machine better have its IT staff on speed dial.
Three’s a crowd
The Ravens, New England Patriots and Titans each drew the dreaded three-game road trip during the season.
The Ravens visit the Dolphins, Vikings and Browns from Weeks 9-11, although the first game is on a Thursday and comes with the mini bye week. It doesn’t get a whole lot easier late in the season, either, as the Ravens finish with three of four on the road against the Bengals, Green Bay Packers and Steelers.
The Patriots travel to the Bills, Saints and Titans from Weeks 5-7. The Titans visit the Houston Texans, Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders from Weeks 4-6.
Lowell Public Access Television
The station where I got my start as a teenager in 2000 is seemingly the only medium without a game in 2025. They must still be reeling from my per diem negotiations.
At any rate, viewers can find regular-season games on 10 channels and streaming services: CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, NFL Network, ESPN, Netflix, YouTube, Prime and Peacock.
Get the tinfoil ready for those bunny ears.
(Photo of Brian Daboll: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
