2025 NFL schedule preview: Ranking the 10 biggest games of the season
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The 2025 NFL schedule will be unveiled on Wednesday in a prime-time spectacle, but we already know the opponents for all 32 teams. That means we can look at the season ahead and identify the biggest games and the high-interest storylines, basically everything except the “when” aspect of each showdown.
The NFL scheduling model is designed to pit the league’s best teams against each other. Every defending division winner plays five of the other seven division winners every year, which sets up playoff previews and rematches and so on.
So of last year’s 13 NFL playoff games, 10 of them will have rematches in the 2025 regular season. Two of those are divisional rivalries — Steelers–Ravens and Eagles–Commanders — so they play each other twice. The Chiefs, trying to get to a sixth Super Bowl in seven seasons, play seven of their nine home games against 2024 playoff teams. The Eagles, Lions, Commanders, Ravens, Texans, Chargers and Broncos all go to Kansas City this fall, and the Chiefs play at the Bills, so you could almost populate a top 10 list with Chiefs games.
But we mixed it up a bit. Here’s our early look at the biggest games of the 2025 season.
If Aaron Rodgers indeed signs with Pittsburgh, this becomes the best player revenge game of the season, with Rodgers facing the Packers for the first time since spending his first 18 seasons in Green Bay. If this game is at Lambeau Field, it will be off the charts. But even in Pittsburgh, it would still be Rodgers vs. Jordan Love, Rodgers vs. Matt LaFleur … Rodgers vs. Green Bay! This is like Tom Brady facing the Patriots in 2021, a ratings bonanza. It’s likely the league won’t know if Rodgers is joining the Steelers before the schedule is announced, so this is a flex-to-prime-time game if there ever was one.
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Houston won 10 games last year and routed L.A. in the playoffs — and the Chargers won 11 with the league’s No. 1 defense. Will C.J. Stroud or Justin Herbert be good enough to repeat that team success? The Chargers and Texans didn’t have splash additions in free agency or the draft, so they’re not necessarily seen as top-10 NFL teams right now, but either could be dangerous as culture gets cemented in Jim Harbaugh’s second year in Los Angeles and DeMeco Ryans’ third in Houston.
The Lions went 15-2 in the regular season and led the league in scoring. Then they got eliminated in the divisional round when the Commanders went to Ford Field, forced five turnovers and ended Detroit’s season with a 45-31 upset win. Dan Campbell lost both his offensive and defensive coordinators, but after suffering a slew of injuries to the defense last year, there’s no telling how good a healthy Lions team will be in 2025. Going to Washington and getting a chance for some small retribution would help keep Detroit atop the list of challengers to the champion Eagles.
We could have more Kansas City games on this list, but Patrick Mahomes vs. Lamar Jackson is a pair of two-time MVPs going head-to-head, so we’ll choose that over Mahomes vs. Jayden Daniels, which could also be an amazing game. Jackson is 1-5 all-time against the Chiefs, including a playoff loss in Baltimore after the 2023 season, and Kansas City’s defense has held the Ravens QB to six passing touchdowns in those six games. The seeding in the AFC playoffs will come down to how well the Chiefs can handle a ridiculously tough home schedule and games like this.
Here’s a divisional pair of games that could mean more in 2025 than they did in 2024, when Detroit swept Chicago. The Bears now have former Detroit offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as their head coach, so his first two games against Dan Campbell will set the tone for the NFC North, with Minnesota and Green Bay having a say in that as well. How much of a step forward can second-year pro Caleb Williams take in a new Bears offense? Chicago fell behind 23-7 in one loss to Detroit last year and lost the other 27-7, so Johnson’s offensive prowess could help close that gap.
This is the best of the “new coach vs. old team” storylines, but you’ll also see the Patriots and Mike Vrabel go to the Titans and the Jaguars and Liam Coen host the Rams and his mentor Sean McVay. These may not be top-tier teams, but they’re rich plotlines nonetheless.
We’ll put both of these NFC East games in here as a single spot in the rankings. This was last year’s NFC Championship Game, when the Eagles put up 55 points and ended a wild postseason run for Jayden Daniels and the Commanders. Washington’s late-season surge included a Week 16 thriller to beat the Eagles in Landover, when Daniels threw the go-ahead touchdown pass with six seconds left in regulation. Philadelphia got huge games from Saquon Barkley to win twice last season, and these two 2025 games will go a long way to deciding which of these teams will host playoff games vs. going on the road as a wild card.
If the Chiefs take a step back in 2025 as some predict, this could be an AFC Championship Game preview. In last year’s divisional-round thriller, Baltimore rallied for a touchdown with 1:33 left but missed a tying two-point conversion on a drop by tight end Mark Andrews. This matchup features a showdown of the top two finishers for last year’s MVP: Buffalo’s Josh Allen got 27 first-place votes to 22 for Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and won the AP honor, despite the same AP panel giving Jackson the nod for first-team All-Pro at quarterback. The winner of this game will be seen as the best challenger to unseat the Chiefs and represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.
Kansas City started last season 15-1, with the lone loss at Buffalo when Josh Allen rumbled for a 26-yard touchdown to build on a two-point lead in the closing minute. These two teams met again at Arrowhead Stadium in the AFC Championship Game, with the Chiefs escaping 32-29 on a late Harrison Butker field goal. If this game comes early in the 2025 season, it would give the Bills a chance to establish that the AFC conference is wide open. Buffalo has lost in the playoffs to the Chiefs in four of the past five seasons.
These are the top two teams in David Helman’s post-draft NFL Power Rankings, with the Eagles at No. 1 and the Lions at No. 2, so it could be seen as an NFC Championship Game preview. They haven’t played since the 2022 opener, when Philadelphia held on for a 38-35 win as part of Detroit’s 1-6 start. The Lions then won eight of their last 10 games and have since developed into a potential title contender. But can Detroit find success without coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, who both left for head coaching jobs? That’s the same challenge the Eagles faced when Shane Steichen and Jonathan Gannon left Philadelphia after the 2022 season.
It’s a rematch of not only Super Bowl 59 (won by the Eagles) but also Super Bowl 57 (won by the Chiefs). And it’s the fifth year in a row that the two teams will face each other, which is rare for teams in opposite conferences and requires Super Bowls being involved.
The series was split over the past four years — each team won a Super Bowl, and each team won on the road in the regular season. So this is Game 5, though in theory it could set up yet another Super Bowl rematch, which would be the first to feature the same two teams for the third time in a span of four years.
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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