Teams know their opponents as soon as the previous season has concluded. It means we’ve known, based on rotation and where each team finished, exactly who everyone is going to face in 2025 for four months now.
But on Wednesday night, the full schedule for all 32 teams was released, and sometimes, when teams play certain teams matters as much as the opponents themselves.
Some clubs get tested early and will have to survive a gauntlet that could tank their records before they really get going. Other teams deal with that gauntlet near the end and need to pad the win column as much as possible beforehand. Then there’s the defending champions, whose first-place schedule looks … well … like a first-place schedule.
There’s a reason the “Super Bowl hangover” is a thing.
Whatever the reason, there are some teams in particular that would benefit from a fast start. Here are a half-dozen.
RELATED: 2025 NFL schedule release: Win-loss predictions, analysis for every team
For playing a fourth-place schedule, the Giants sure got screwed. Just look at the first eight weeks of their season:
Woof.
That doesn’t even include ensuing games against 49ers, Bears, Packers, Lions and Patriots before a Week 14 bye. That’s the latest possible bye week a team can have, by the way.
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I’d be rioting in the streets if I were a Giants fan. I’d even pay the extra fee to do it in the congestion relief zones. Things are supposed to be easy when you finish in the cellar of your division. You know, give teams a chance to get back on track and all that. This is an absolute murderer’s row of opponents to start the season, when New York doesn’t even know who its Week 1 starting quarterback is going to be. Not to mention, head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen’s jobs are on the line.
With the way this shakes out for the Giants, I’ll be surprised if they steal three wins all season. I hope I’m wrong, to be clear. But it’s hard to think I will be given what the Giants are in for in 2025.
Good work is rewarded with more work. That’s the case of the division-winning Detroit Lions, whose 15-2 record last season means they get the best of the best this year. Add in the fact that they play in perhaps the toughest division in football for the second year in a row, and oh by the way, have to face two of the next toughest divisions in the AFC North and the NFC East, and the Lions are being done no favors. They open the season against two division opponents: Green Bay at Lambeau and then Chicago at home. The Packers are always a tough opponent for the Lions, and the Bears now have a guy in charge that is very familiar with how the Lions do things. It doesn’t get easier from there as the Lions face the Ravens, Browns, Bengals, Chiefs and then the Buccaneers before getting their Week 8 bye.
Assuming the Bengals will be much improved, Detroit’s only breather to start the season is presumably the Browns. And even though Cleveland has more questions than answers at the quarterback position, Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett is still spearheading its defense.
The Lions getting through the early stretch of their season with a winning record could be paramount to repeating as NFC North champs, especially with how razor-thin the margin likely is between all four teams.
The Bengals aren’t exactly known for fast starts. In fact, they’re 1-4 in Week 1 over the past five years. The lone victory came in 2021, the year they went to the Super Bowl. In fact, they started 5-2 that year, which is something they should be aiming for this season, too. Though it might be a bit harder.
The Bengals can theoretically ease into the season, taking on the Browns in Cleveland and the Jaguars at home. They’ll then travel to Minnesota, Denver and Green Bay with a home game versus Detroit sandwiched in between. A three-game homestand against the Steelers, Jets and Bears before their Week 10 bye might be favorable. But coming out of those first nine games with six wins could go a long way for Cincinnati toward setting up a return to the postseason without a lot of late-season heavy lifting.
The Bengals have a three-game stretch from Weeks 13 to 15 where they get the Ravens twice and the Bills. You don’t want your playoff hopes riding on those weeks if you’re the Bengals, so your best bet is to get off to a good start, no matter how hard that’s been in recent years.
The NFC East just has a tough go of it, playing both the NFC North and AFC West — two divisions that produced three playoff teams apiece last year. The Commanders finished in second place, which means they get teams like the Falcons, Seahawks and Dolphins. Those should be manageable, if quarterback Jayden Daniels continues his ascension. The Commanders also had a productive offseason and are undeniably better on paper than they were last year. That bodes well, but it still won’t be a cake walk.
Things get pretty dicey for Washington after their Week 12 bye. They have to play the Broncos, Vikings, Giants and Cowboys, and the Eagles twice. Furthermore, Washington leads the league with four games against opponents coming off a bye.
It’s in the Commanders’ best interest to pile up as many wins as they can early, so they can survive the trials that await them from Week 13 on.
Woe is the Bills. They routinely win their division. They routinely make deep playoff runs. And yet, there isn’t much to show for it other than painful postseason season exits. Will this year be any different after they take on much of the league’s top talent in the regular season?
The good news is, after opening against the Ravens, the Bills’ schedule gets much easier. They’ll have the chance to rack up some wins against the Jets, Dolphins, Saints, Patriots and Falcons before their Week 7 bye. They come back against Carolina before having to face the Chiefs in Week 9.
From Week 11 to Week 14, they’ll get the Buccaneers, Texans, Steelers and Bengals. That could be a complicating stretch, with seeding implications on the line. Buffalo also has to face off against the defending champion Eagles in Week 17.
If the Bills survive their early test against Baltimore, they could conceivably win every game until their bye, giving them a 6-0 start to the season. That would put them in the driver’s seat for home-field advantage in the postseason. It would also be the franchise’s best mark to begin a season since 1964, when Buffalo finished as AFL champs.
Not only will the Eagles have a target on their backs due to the whole “defending champs” title, but they pretty much have tests all season long given their first-place schedule. The reason it behooves them to start fast is nothing more than the fact that they get the Giants twice before their well-placed Week 9 bye (sorry, again, Giants fans). Those are the only “gimme” games I can really see on their schedule.
A Super Bowl rematch is on the books for Week 2, which can honestly benefit both sides given the annual early-season shenanigans we see. We don’t yet know who teams really are at the beginning of the year, and that can help make familiar opponents a little less familiar.
Also, Philly plays just two prime-time games before its bye week. Down the stretch is where its days get longer, with more games in prime-time hours — at least four, to be exact. The Eagles also have a Saturday game in Week 16 at Washington.
Either way, all eyes will be on the reigning champs, and they’ll give us something to watch early on.
Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.
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