Welcome to the Friday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!
With the 2025 NFL schedule now out, there are no big events left until training camp, so you might be wondering what we’re going to be talking about in this newsletter for the next two months, and although I have no idea, it will be something, because the NFL news cycle never sleeps.
That being said, the important thing is that I do know what we’ll be talking about today, and that’s the schedule. After breaking down the schedule yesterday, we’re going to break it down even more today by taking a look at the craziest quirks and tracking which teams will be traveling the most miles.
As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. Let’s get to the rundown.
1. Caleb Williams didn’t want the Bears to draft him
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If Caleb Williams had gotten his way in the NFL Draft last year, he definitely wouldn’t have ended up in Chicago. That’s the main takeaway from “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” a book by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham. ESPN revealed a few tidbits from the book on Thursday and there were some bombshells.
- Williams wanted the Vikings to draft him. After meeting with Kevin O’Connell at the 2024 NFL Combine, Williams decided that he absolutely wanted Minnesota to draft him. “I need to go to the Vikings,” he told his father. Williams’ dad, Carl, actually passed the request on to Bears general manager Ryan Poles, but Poles made it clear that the Bears would be drafting Caleb “no matter what.” The twist here is that the Bears will be opening their 2025 season against the Vikings in a Monday night showdown. I’m guessing Williams will be asked about this quite a few times between now and then.
- Why Caleb didn’t want to go to the Bears. Carl Williams called Chicago “the place quarterbacks go to die,” which definitely isn’t a compliment. Caleb also didn’t like the idea of playing for Bears then-offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. “I don’t think I can do it with Waldron,” Williams said. Caleb recounted how there were times in 2024 where he had to watch film by himself. Waldron and Bears head coach Matt Eberflus were fired just weeks apart during November of the 2024 season.
Williams was so adamant about not playing for the Bears that he briefly thought about heading to the UFL for a year and then making the switch to the NFL in 2025 so he could end up with another team. In the end, Williams decided that he would make the Bears work and accept the fact that Chicago was going to draft him.
“I can do it for this team,” Caleb told his dad. “I’m going to go to the Bears.”
You can check out more on this wild story here.
2. Here are the most bizarre quirks on the 2025 NFL schedule
After the schedule comes out each year, my favorite thing to do is comb through all 32 schedules to see if I can find some interesting quirks. Sure, that means I’m up for 17 straight hours after the schedule release so I can go through every team’s slate of games, but the good news is that I found quite a few quirks, so it was time well spent.
Let’s check out the six weirdest quirks on the schedule this year, starting with the Cowboys:
- Cowboys hit with most brutal stretch ever. Someone in the NFL scheduling department must have wanted to see the Cowboys suffer this season, because they got handed a brutal stretch that will go on for SIX WEEKS. Starting in Week 12, the Cowboys will face the Eagles, Chiefs, Lions and Vikings in consecutive games, which will make Dallas the FIRST team in NFL history to play four straight games against teams that all won at least 14 games in the prior season. The Cowboys will also face the Chargers and Commanders in that stretch, so they’ll also become the first team in NFL history to play six straight games against teams that all won at least 11 games in the prior season. Basically, the Cowboys have a nightmare schedule.
- Eagles’ schedule is rough. The Eagles have the fourth-most difficult strength of schedule in 2025 and one reason for that is because they face so many playoff teams. They Eagles will face 10 teams that went to the postseason last year, which is an NFL record. Both the Eagles and Lions will play a total of 11 games against playoff teams from last season, but the Lions will only face nine playoff teams. The Eagles slate includes a rematch with all four teams they faced in the postseason last year (Packers, Rams, Commanders, Chiefs), which makes them the first team since the 1993 Bills to face that situation.
- Bengals and Ravens making rare Thanksgiving appearances, but Bengals might not be happy about where the game is being played. This season will mark the first time in 15 years that the Bengals have been scheduled for a Thanksgiving game while the Ravens will be playing in their first Turkey Day game in 12 years. The Bengals are also playing the Ravens in a Thursday game on the road for the third straight year, making them just the second team in NFL history to play the same team in a Thursday road game in three straight seasons, according to SI (The Bears did it against the Packers). This will actually be the fourth straight year that the Bengals have had a road primetime game in Baltimore, but the 2021 game wasn’t on a Thursday. The Bengals would probably love to see the Ravens travel to Cincinnati for a primetime game at some point.
- Chargers staring at rare divisional stretch to start the season. The Chargers will kick off the season with three straight games against divisional opponents (Chiefs, Raiders, Broncos), which will mark the first time in 37 years that L.A. has opened the year with at least three straight games against AFC West teams. The last time it happened came all the way back in 1988 when they opened the season against five straight divisional opponents.
- Panthers fans should be thrilled about Carolina’s Week 1 opponent. For the third time in franchise history, the Panthers will be opening the season against the Jaguars, which is notable, because the other two times it happened (2004, 2015), the Panthers ended up making it to the Super Bowl. Go put those Super Bowl bets in now, Panthers fans.
- Home sweet home for Titans. The Titans won’t have to leave Nashville during the ENTIRE month of November thanks to the fact they’ll be playing FOUR straight home games. From Week 9 (Nov. 2) thru Week 13 (Nov. 30), the Titans play four home games, plus they have a bye sandwiched in there, so they’ll go five weeks without leaving Tennessee. This will mark just the eighth time over the past 34 years that a team has been given four straight home games (2021 Ravens, 2020 Steelers, 2016 Raiders, 2016 Dolphins, 2016 Packers, 2015 Titans, 2008 Texans). Of the previous seven teams to play four straight home games, six of them went either 4-0 or 3-1 during their home-stand. Unfortunately for Tennessee, the only team that didn’t finish above .500 was the 2015 Titans, who went 0-4.
I actually found 22 crazy scheduling quirks, and if you want to see to the full list, you can do that here.
3. NFL travel miles: Chargers will be earning some frequent flier miles
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If any player on the Chargers roster suffers from jet lag, they might want to think about asking for a trade before the season starts because Jim Harbaugh’s team is going to be spending more time in the air this year than any other team in the NFL.
Thanks to research done by Bill Speros of bookies.com, we know that the Chargers will be traveling a total of 37,086 miles this season, which is more than the Bengals, Bills and Ravens will travel combined (29,946 miles). According to ESPN, the Chargers total will be the most mileage traveled by ANY TEAM since the NFL expanded to 32 teams back in 2002.
Here’s a look at the 10 teams that will travel the most miles:
1. Chargers: 37,086 miles
2. Rams: 34,832
3. Seahawks: 31,302
4. Jaguars: 29,006
5. 49ers: 28,363
6. Falcons: 25,947
7. Colts: 25,089
8. Dolphins: 24,409
9. Broncos: 23,267
10. Chiefs: 21,695
The team that travels the fewest miles is the Bengals, who will only racking up 8,753 air miles this season. Last year, the Commanders traveled the fewest miles and that ended up working out well for them with Washington reaching the NFC title game for the first time in 33 years.
If you want to see the full list of every team’s travel miles, we have that here.
4. Early Week 1 picks: Ravens top Bills, Lions hold off Packers
With the NFL schedule out, that means we can officially start making picks. Tyler Sullivan didn’t want to waste any time, so he decided to make some early predictions for Week 1.
Let’s check out his predictions for the three biggest games:
- Lions at Packers: “I think the Packers are one of the up-and-coming teams in the NFC, but they’re not quite there just yet. Meanwhile, the Lions are firmly within their championship window and have recently dominated this matchup.” Way-too-early pick: Lions -1.5
- Ravens at Bills: “This will almost certainly be a heavyweight showdown, and I’m going to give the edge to Baltimore. The Ravens defense not only turned a corner in the second half of last season but was the very best in the league over that span, and I expect that to carry over into 2025.” Way-too-early pick: Ravens +1.5
- Vikings at Bears: “I think Minnesota is the perfect situation for a young quarterback to find himself in, given all of the talent on the depth chart. That said, I think it could take J.J. McCarthy some time to get his feet under him as the full-time starter. So, we’ll give Chicago the edge here at home on Monday night.” Way-too-early pick: Bears +1.5.
Like I said, Tyler made a pick for every game in Week 1 and you want to check out his full predictions, you can do that here.
5. CBS Sports interviews the NFL’s scheduling guru
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If there’s one thankless job in the NFL, it’s definitely the one that Mike North has. As the league’s vice president of broadcast planning, his team is in charge of putting the schedule together. Every year, they have to sit down and create a schedule of 272 games that will make every team happy even though it’s impossible to make every team happy.
North sat down with CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones to answer some key questions about this year’s schedule.
Q: The Jets and Steelers are playing Week 1. Does the league know something about Aaron Rodgers’ future plans?
North: “I think if the league knew, we probably would’ve scheduled that game for a national television window. So at worst, it’s Justin Fields against his old team. At best, it’s Aaron Rodgers going up against one of his old teams. … Look at what we did with Aaron Rodgers’ first game the last two years (both Monday night games). If we knew something, I think you would’ve seen it reflected in the schedule.”
Q: How’d the Chiefs and Cowboys end up on Thanksgiving on CBS?
North: “It was really [NFL EVP] Hans Schroeder that challenged the team to say if we were ever going to do it, wouldn’t this be the year to take the Ferrari out of the garage? The commissioner [Roger Goodell] obviously was excited. He knows what we’ve become as part of the fabric of this country on that day. And you get a lot of casual fans watching Thanksgiving. You know, when you’re starting to do 40-45 million viewers for an NFL game, those maybe aren’t the diehards all season long watching every game no matter what. I think it became an opportunity that once we realized we think we can do this, we think we can still feed all the other mouths we have to feed, even by putting out a really good spread on Thanksgiving. It became something everybody got excited for. It really started with Hans, partnership with CBS Sports president and CEO David Berson and then obviously approval from the boss.”
North also offered an explanation for why the Titans didn’t land a single prime-time game even though they have the No. 1 overall pick in the draft under center for them in Cam Ward.
North: “We kind of have this adage that you play your way into prime time. You don’t draft your way into prime time. So the Titans are one of the teams that don’t currently have a national television window assigned. But that’s what things like flexible scheduling are for. And if you look down the stretch for the Titans, they play San Francisco in Week 15, Kansas City in Week 16. They’ve got the same opportunity every other team has to play their way into a national window.”
North answered several other questions, and you can read his entire interview here.
6. Extra points: 49ers and Chargers set to sell minority stakes
This is always a busy time in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that’s happening, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.
- 49ers are selling a 6.2% stake in the team. The York family currently owns 97% of the 49ers, but that percentage is expected to go down in the near future with San Francisco planning to sell a partial stake in the team to three different Bay Area families, according to ESPN. The families will get a combined 6.2%. Sportico has reported that the sale will value the 49ers at $8.5 billion, which means the York family will be pulling in $527 million from the sale.
- Chargers also selling a stake in the team. For the second time in seven months, the Chargers are planning to sell a stake in the team. Back in October, Pistons owner Tom Gores bought a 27% stake in the Chargers. This time around the Chargers are looking to sell an 8% stake to a private investment firm, according to The Athletic. The Spanos family will still hold a controlling stake in the franchise with 61% of the team.
- Charles Woodson buying an ownership stake in the Browns. Do you want more ownership news? Because we’ve got that. Charles Woodson, an Ohio native, is going to purchase a 0.1% stake in the Cleveland Browns, according to The Athletic. If Woodson, who currently works for Fox, goes through with the sale, he’ll have to comply with the same broadcast restrictions as Tom Brady.
- Tyreek Hill reacts to Colts’ schedule video. One reason the Colts ended up deleting their schedule release video is because there was a joke in there about Tyreek Hill. As it turns out, though, Hill actually thought the joke was funny. “Should’ve left it up Colts, this was funny,” the Dolphins receiver wrote on social media. If you missed all the controversy with the Colts’ video, you can catch up on the details here.
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