The NFL released its 2025 schedule on May 14, and there were plenty of quirks to tackle on this year’s slate. The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills dominate the marquee matchups, while the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles play on nearly every day of the week.
There are three Thanksgiving games (as usual), but there are also three Christmas games this year. Games will be broadcasted or streamed on 11 different platforms, making the schedule bigger than ever before.
While we knew the opponents for months, fans finally know when their team will be playing that opponent. When the schedule comes out, the games are evaluated to a tee — finding every highlight possible in the hours after release.
With a schedule release comes overreactions, fair or unfair. Which are truly overreactions or which are reality? There are some statements in here that certainly warranted being said.
It’s stupid to have the Lions AND Cowboys on Christmas
Overreaction or reality: Reality
The Lions and Cowboys are the Thanksgiving Day staple, with the Lions playing the early Thanksgiving game since 1934 and the Cowboys playing on the holiday every year since 1978. Netflix announced its Christmas Day slate on Wednesday, and the early game features the Cowboys (at Commanders) at 1 p.m. ET and Lions in the 4:30 p.m. game (at Vikings).
Did the NFL really have to pin the Thanksgiving traditionalists on Christmas? The Lions are good and the Cowboys always draw massive ratings, but why did the league insist on having both teams play? Isn’t the point of having a Christmas tripleheader every year to feature teams that don’t traditionally have a holiday game?
The league got it right with the games last year (Chiefs at Steelers and Ravens at Texans). There are plenty of good NFC teams to feature on Christmas if that’s what Netflix wanted — and it did get it right by featuring the Commanders and Lions in that sense.
As for the nightcap, that’s Broncos and Chiefs. The Chiefs always get the prime-time and standalone slots these days, but that’s not an issue on Christmas since Kansas City doesn’t play on Thanksgiving every year. Of course, Kansas City is playing Dallas on Thanksgiving this year.
Pretty lame for the NFL to have three teams that are playing on Thanksgiving playing on Christmas, especially when two of them play on Thanksgiving every year.
Chiefs play in too many prime-time games
Overreaction or reality: Reality
The Chiefs are a ratings juggernaut and are fun to watch every week. That being said, the NFL gave the team that has won three Super Bowls over the last six seasons too much exposure. This year, the NFL decided to give the Chiefs seven prime-time games — the most in the league. The Chiefs are playing in five prime-time games over the first eight weeks, tied for the most of any team in NFL history.
In fairness to the Chiefs, they have a loaded schedule of quality opponents. The Eagles, Bills and Ravens are part of the Chiefs’ schedule gauntlet, along with the Lions and Commanders. There’s five potential prime-time games, but the Chiefs ended up having just two of them on the prime-time slate.
The Chargers (Brazil game), Giants and Jaguars were three of the five prime-time games in the first eight weeks. Did the NFL really need to make Chiefs-Giants and Chiefs-Jaguars prime-time games? Couldn’t they fall into the Sunday afternoon slate in favor of a better matchup?
The Chiefs also play of Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is also part of their standalone slate (Christmas also counts as a prime-time game since the Chiefs are the night game). Kansas City actually has 10 standalone games, or 58.8% of the regular-season schedule.
Kansas City is in the national window too much, but the Chiefs deliver massive ratings. The NFL clearly used high ratings as part of its scheduling formula for networks this year.
The Eagles and Commanders playing twice in three weeks is great
Overreaction or reality: Overreaction
Does it really make sense for the Eagles and Commanders to play twice in three weeks at any point in the season, especially at the end of the season? The Eagles will travel to Washington to face the Commanders in Week 16, followed by the Commanders heading to Philadelphia in Week 18.
That’s twice in 15 days the Eagles and Commanders will square off. For the two teams that faced off in the NFC Championship game last season, this is really late in the schedule for both teams to play. Wouldn’t it have made sense for one of these games to be early in the season?
What happens if Jalen Hurts or Jayden Daniels gets hurt in December and can’t play? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the must-see matchup? And one or both teams may have nothing to play for in Week 18, so some starters may not play.
The NFL is taking a huge gamble with both the Eagles and Commanders being healthy and good in December and January. This could blow up in their face.
2025 NFL schedule: Winners, losers as Commanders earn limelight, Cowboys face harrowing late-season gauntlet
Tyler Sullivan
Vikings playing back-to-back International Series games is genius
Overreaction or reality: Reality
The Vikings are going to be the first team in NFL history to play consecutive International Series games in two different countries, first playing the Steelers in Dublin followed by the Browns in London.
This appeared to be a significantly unfair advantage for the Vikings, but it’s actually a stroke of genius. Minnesota has to play nine road games in 2025 and both International Series games are actually road games. The Vikings don’t even have to give up a home game while playing overseas.
Minnesota is playing back-to-back International Series games, followed by a bye week after being overseas. The Vikings can plan a two-week trip for Ireland and England, so they don’t have to worry about traveling back and forth while getting acclimated to that time zone.
The rest of the schedule is a lot to be desired, but at least the Vikings have a break with their nine road games thanks to how the NFL devised their International Series slate. Playing two of these games isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Cowboys are in the Kickoff Game because NFL knows they won’t be good
Overreaction or reality: Overreaction
The Cowboys certainly had an interesting offseason, looking better on paper than the 7-10 atrocity that finished last season. With the Eagles winning the Super Bowl, the Cowboys have to watch their NFC East rivals hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the second time in seven years.
Are the Cowboys good in 2025? That remains to be seen, but it seemed like a no-brainer to have Dallas face off against Philadelphia in the NFL Kickoff Game. The Cowboys are a ratings juggernaut and fans will be full of optimism heading into the season opener. On the Eagles side, Philadelphia fans get to raise their championship banner against their arch rivals — with Jerry Jones in attendance.
Cowboys-Eagles always drives massive ratings, and the matchup has been a standalone game in 23 of the last 26 years. The league sees the potential of the kickoff game drawing over 40 million people to the television.
This has nothing to do whether the Cowboys will be good or not, but the matchup does lose some of its luster later in the season if Dallas has another disappointing season in 2025.
Eagles schedule is unfair with no consecutive home games
Overreaction or reality: Overreaction
The Eagles are going to be the first Super Bowl champion to not play consecutive home games on the regular-season schedule in the following season. Philadelphia has nine road games and eight home games this season, playing back-to-back road games in October and late-December.
Is this schedule fair for a defending Super Bowl champion, or any team? The back-to-back road games the Eagles play have an advantage, as the Eagles will have at least eight days rest between those games. They also have 10 days rest for road games at the Chiefs in September, Vikings in October and Chargers in December.
The Eagles do have a brutal schedule in terms of opponents’ record from the previous season, as they are the first team in NFL history with 10 games against playoff teams from the previous year (11 counting Washington twice). Not having back-to-back home games is tough, but the Eagles essentially have three mini-byes in addition to their regular bye.
The schedule isn’t as bad as the optics look.
Chiefs-Bills is scheduled at the perfect time of the season
Overreaction or reality: Reality
The Chiefs and Bills will have their annual regular-season showdown in Week 9 on CBS, one of the most anticipated matchups of the year. The Chiefs-Bills matchup has typically been sporadic on the schedule since Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen have been squaring off on a yearly basis, but having a Week 9 matchup in November is perfect.
Having the Chiefs and Bills face off in the middle of the season is ideal, even if one of the teams has a slow start to the year. The storylines are going to emerge regardless, but a win over the other can provide a second-half spark to the season.
It doesn’t matter when Chiefs-Bills play, but this is the best week the two AFC juggernauts can get.
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