Some random thoughts and opinions on the 2025 NFL schedule release that took place on Wednesday.
• The Eagles won the Super Bowl, but the 2025 NFL schedule is all about the Chiefs.
Kansas City will play in prime time Week 1 on Friday, Sept. 5, when it faces the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chiefs will play on Sunday Night Football in Weeks 3, 6 and 14. They will play on Monday Night Football in Weeks 5 and 8 and on Thursday Night Football in Week 17. In addition, the Chiefs will play on Thanksgiving in Week 13.
That’s a total of eight stand-alone games. The Chiefs are also scheduled for four games in the national 4:25 p.m. ET slot.
If you’re one of those people who have Chiefs fatigue, you won’t be getting any kind of reprieve in 2025.
• As always, the Cowboys are all over the prime-time slate with two games each on Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. The Thanksgiving Day game and Christmas Day game gives Dallas eight stand-alone games this season.
• The NFL seems to be all-in on dynamic Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels. Washington will be featured in seven stand-alone windows, including Christmas Day against the Cowboys at 1 p.m. ET.
• There will be five Monday Night Football doubleheaders in 2025.
Week 2 will feature Buccaneers-Texans at 7 p.m. ET and Chargers-Raiders at 10 p.m. ET.
Week 4 will feature Jets-Dolphins at 7:15 p.m. ET and Bengals-Broncos at 8:15 p.m. ET.
Week 6 will feature Bills-Falcons at 7:15 p.m. ET and Bears-Commanders at 8:15 p.m. ET.
Week 7 will feature Bucs-Lions at 7 p.m. ET and Texans-Seahawks at 10 p.m. ET.
There will also be a doubleheader in Week 18 with teams TBD.
• Thanksgiving has a chance to be an all-time day for the NFL.
The Packers will play the Lions at 1 p.m. ET on Fox. What’s notable here is that the NFL has changed the traditional Thanksgiving start time for the annual Lions game from 12:30 p.m. ET to 1 p.m. ET.
CBS gets what will be the most watched game of the season at 4:30 p.m. ET when the Chiefs visit the Cowboys.
Thanksgiving will wrap up with the Bengals visiting the Ravens at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
• With Christmas Day falling on a Thursday this year, we will get a tripleheader, with the first two games on Netflix (Cowboys at Commanders at 1 p.m. and Lions at Vikings at 4:30 p.m.) and the night game (Broncos at Chiefs) on Amazon.
• ESPN’s Monday Night Football schedule isn’t great. It basically has three A+ games:
Lions at Ravens in Week 3
Commanders-Chiefs in Week 8
Eagles-Packers in Week 10
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman deserve better.
• The Amazon schedule is about what you’d expect. They have a very good game in Week 1 with Commanders-Packers. A solid game in Week 12 with Bills-Texans. And the rest is just ho-hum.
• The Titans, Browns and Saints are the only teams that do not have prime-time games in 2025. The only interesting thing about that is you’d think the NFL might want to showcase No. 1 pick Cam Ward at least once to a national audience.
• NBC and Sunday Night Football, as always, have the best prime-time schedule. Among SNF’s best games:
Ravens-Billls
Lions-Chiefs
Lions-Eagles
Bengals-Ravens
Texans-Chiefs
• The NFL does not have high hopes for the New York teams.
The Giants will be featured in prime time three times (once against Kansas City and once against Philadelphia), but only play one game at 4:25 p.m. That gives them 12 games at 1 p.m. Meanwhile, the Jets have two prime-time games and one 9:30 a.m. game. The remainder of their 13 games are at 1 p.m., which means the Jets and Giants will be going head-to-head in the New York market many weeks in 2025.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL 2025 Schedule Observations.
