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RotoBaller breaks down the biggest winners and losers of the 2025 NFL schedule release. Which teams face an easy or difficult road in the 2025 NFL season?
What was once an event with little fanfare is still an event with little fanfare. But thanks to the constant obsession of corporations with increasing their profits and squeezing revenue out of everything possible, now we have the schedule release becoming some big event.
We're at the peak of boredom in the offseason, at the point where teams have just started practicing again, but we don't have anything juicy yet. Since the NFL would like to make more profit year-round, they have just released the full schedule for 2025.
We already knew each team's opponents, but the order of the games they play matters. Teams with tough slates down the stretch didn't get very lucky, while those with an ending slate of teams that floundered about to losing records last year are seeing greener pastures. Let's dive into the winners and losers of the 2025 NFL Schedule!
Be sure to check all of our fantasy football rankings for 2025:- 2025 fantasy football rankings (redraft)
- Dynasty fantasy football rankings
- 2025 NFL rookie fantasy football rankings
- Best ball fantasy football rankings
- Quarterback fantasy football rankings
- Running back fantasy football rankings
- Wide receiver fantasy football rankings
- Tight end fantasy football rankings
Loser: Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys' ineptitude, largely due to the senility of owner, general manager, and team president Jerry Jones, will be on full display in the very first game of the season. They will take on the Philadelphia Eagles, last year's Super Bowl winners, on Thursday Night Football to kick off the 2025 season.
The NFL’s reasoning for choosing #Cowboys-#Eagles as the season opener is that the league feels it hasn’t fully capitalized on the rivalry in recent years — due to factors like QB injuries or one team not being competitive by the time the game was played. By putting it in Week 1,… pic.twitter.com/JRDTpMtuVg
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) May 15, 2025
For the reasons explained above, scheduling this game in Week 1 makes perfect sense. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has missed far too many installments of this key rivalry, and an upset victory would certainly generate a ton of revenue for the league. Still, the Cowboys will probably get spanked.
There is a chance they could win by exploiting the Eagles' pass-rush weakness, which lost many key members after 2024. But no team wants to face the squad that blew out the two-time defending Super Bowl Champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, in the 2024-2025 season's championship game.
Winner: San Francisco 49ers
It helps to have the easiest schedule in the league by far in 2025. The niners have an absolute cakewalk of a slate of games, but especially toward the end of the season. Hopefully, several of their players who suffered from injuries in 2024 will have recovered by then.
Our 2025 Schedule is HERE‼️
🎟️: https://t.co/Day61kL3Fb@Ticketmaster | #FTTB pic.twitter.com/5jFULz2T5L
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) May 15, 2025
If that happens, their final stretch of six games -- against the Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Giants, Carolina Panthers, Tennessee Titans, and Seattle Seahawks will be a complete joke. Only one of those teams had a winning record in 2024.
The others have serious issues, like turmoil at the quarterback position, horrible offensive lines (lol Seahawks), a serious lack of talent at wide receiver (the Panthers and Titans), completely inept front offices (Seahawks again, their general manager, John Schneider, is a moron), and the like.
If 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan starts managing his players' injuries better (he won't), then maybe the team will easily waltz into the playoffs. Who am I kidding, though? They'll have to get lucky that players like running back Christian McCaffrey can survive getting 30 touches in blowout games all year.
Loser: New York Giants
It appears that quarterback Russell Wilson will be the starter for the Giants in Week 1. They drafted rookie signal-caller Jaxson Dart after trading back into the first round to get him, but he's a young prospect, and it wouldn't be a surprise if the team wants to develop him before throwing him to the wolves.
OUR 2025 SCHEDULE!! pic.twitter.com/cWi1YX4jGt
— New York Giants (@Giants) May 15, 2025
The problem is that the team faces an absolute murderer's row of games in its first four weeks. They have the most challenging schedule in the league by a comfortable margin. A large part of that is that they face the Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, and Los Angeles Chargers in their first four games.
All of those teams had winning records the last time their starters were healthy for a season, so none of those contests will be easy. Then, after a Week 5 respite with the New Orleans Saints, they face another absolute gauntlet with matches vs. the Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos, the Eagles again, and the San Francisco 49ers.
New York Giants home schedule: pic.twitter.com/D26OCrEkuK https://t.co/8lZZCZnnmL
— Philly Sports Sufferer (@mccrystal_alex) May 12, 2025
It doesn't seem like Giants head coach Brian Daboll's job is very secure. If the team can't pull out a few wins in these games, we might see turmoil in the coaching staff and front office. They'll almost certainly be favored to lose eight of their first nine games. Who knows how early it could happen?
At the very least, we might see Dart start at QB sooner than we think. I don't see Wilson lasting more than eight games. Even so, Giants owner John Mara may be understanding of the Giants' predicament. It's incredibly tough to have a winning record without an elite roster when facing the NFL's toughest slate of games. But it could get very ugly, very fast.
Winner: New England Patriots
The Pats overhauled their coaching staff in a meaningful way this offseason. They hired one of the league's most underrated head coaches, Mike Vrabel, to be their next lead guy. Then, through the 2025 NFL Draft and in free agency, they overhauled the offensive line and wide receiver position, their two weakest assets in 2024.
The New England Patriots are going to be a 10 win football team. #NEPats
Love this schedule. pic.twitter.com/bGSBLQMCaX
— Patriots Lead (@Patriots_Lead) May 15, 2025
Luckily for them, they'll get a very nice soft landing in their first eight games. They feature only teams with losing records, other than the Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills. The Bills game in Week 5 isn't the prettiest matchup, but the Steelers haven't even attempted to figure out their quarterback situation, so that will be an interesting contest.
The new offense will have time to get various aspects of its game plans working. This will be a perfect environment for rookie running back TreVeyon Henderson and freshman wide receiver Kyle Williams to try to grow into impact players and for quarterback Drake Maye to solidify his connections with them.
The NFL expanded to 17 games in 2021, here are a few interesting strength of schedule trends since then:
1. The AFC team with the easiest schedule (or an AFC team tied for it) has finished with a winning record every year. This year, the team in that spot is the Patriots. pic.twitter.com/ii95IdtvBs
— John Breech (@johnbreech) May 12, 2025
New England emerging from this stretch with a commanding winning record, and perhaps even challenging for the division lead, wouldn't be a huge surprise. It will be a tall task to beat Buffalo, which has dominated this division for years and has a much better roster, but it's possible.
Loser: Cleveland Browns
This is basically the same story as the Giants. The Browns might not be favored to win a single game this season as time goes on. They're especially in deep water in their first six contests. They'll go against the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Steelers from Weeks 1-6.
#Browns 2025 schedule.
Tough man. Tough. pic.twitter.com/3ZeEyTwDdv
— Jack Gorman - Sports (@JackGormanSport) May 15, 2025
They're completely screwed. At least it will be fun to see how their quarterback carousel turns out. At least the team could have been more fun to watch if they had stayed put and drafted wide receiver/cornerback hybrid Travis Hunter with their second overall pick. Instead, they traded down and drafted... a defensive tackle.
Perhaps Cleveland has a longer-term plan in place. It doesn't seem like even they believe they'll have a shot at making the playoffs this year. They're probably headed for another abysmal season, perhaps reminiscent of the worst two-year stretch of any team in NFL history, when the Browns won just one game in two full seasons.
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