The NFL schedule release is a month away (give or take a day). We know that the Philadelphia Eagles are going to have to play a first-place schedule, and that means they’ll have a mega-tough time punching another ticket to the Super Bowl.
Aside from the divisional games, they have home games against the Raiders, Bears, Lions, Broncos and Rams. They have away games against the Chiefs, Bills, Buccaneers, Vikings, Packers and the Chargers. That’s got the makings of a hellish calendar.
What makes a schedule good or bad?
In 2023, the Eagles had the first-place schedule, and because of that, they had a super hard part of the schedule that some deemed ‘the gauntlet.’ The Eagles didn’t make it through said gauntlet. Thus, the term ‘gauntlet’ was officially eliminated from the English language and will not be used again in this piece.
In 2024, the Eagles had the exact opposite of that whole debacle. When they flew home from Los Angeles after the Week 12 game, they didn’t have to get on a plane again until they went down to New Orleans for the Super Bowl.
There are a whole lot of things that can make a schedule rock or stink. The timing of the tough opponents, when they have to play the teams in hot or cold weather, the number of consecutive away games — it’s a lot.
Weather
I love a snow game, but I’d rather the Eagles didn’t play in a snow game. It’s much better to watch those games objectively and be in awe of how sweet it looks, rather than have my mental well-being hinge on conditions in the upper atmosphere.
The Eagles have to play in both Buffalo and Green Bay next season. The best-case scenario is for those games to be played in late October. It would be fine if those games were played in September, but because the Bills are a good team and the Packers are a team in the NFC, I think it’d be better if those games weren’t played in the first month of the season. That way, the Eagles’ offense can get rolling with their new offensive coordinator.
On the other side of that coin, the Eagles also have to play in Tampa Bay. The best (and most scientific) way to look at Fahrenheit is to think about it like It’s ___ percent hot. If the weather was 1 degree Fahrenheit, then it was 1 percent hot. If it was 85 degrees, then it was 85 percent hot.
Last year, the Eagles played in Tampa in Week 3, and the “RealFeel” was 99 percent hot. Luckily, with heat, it’s a little easier to get around than it is with the cold or the snow. The Best case for the Tampa Bay game is to be played in December, but if it was just a Sunday, Monday, or Thursday night game, that would also be cool (pun absolutely intended).
Travel
The Eagles have to play the AFC West this season, and travel-wise, that isn’t great. Luckily, the games against the Broncos and the Raiders are home games, while the away games are at the Chargers and the Chiefs.
Obviously, it would be best if the Eagles only had to travel to Denver and Kansas City, but at least they don’t have to travel to both Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The best-case scenario is that the Eagles have a couple of their travel games one after another so they don’t have to fly back home. You don’t want to overdo that, though, because teams that play three consecutive road games have a significantly worse record when they play the third game (teams win roughly 39% of those games).
An ideal road stretch would be playing at Los Angeles, following that up with a game in Dallas, and then a home game.
A bad road stretch would be playing at the Chargers, then at the Packers, and then at the Cowboys. That means the Eagles would be flying all over the place and then ending the trip with a divisional game. That’s big-time yucky.
Coaching
This is cut and dry: you want as much tape on your opponents as possible, which means you want to see how new offensive and defensive coordinators call games.
In 2025, the Eagles are playing a handful of teams with new coordinators: The Buccaneers and the Raiders have new offensive coordinators. The Cowboys, the Bears, and the Lions have new offensive and defensive coordinators.
We don’t want to see any of those teams in Week 1, but it’d be best if we didn’t see any of them until October.
Divisional games
The best-case scenario for divisional games is that they happen at the beginning of the season and then at the end of the season; that way we get to see how much each team has grown, and if there are any injuries in the first game, hopefully they’re all cleared up by the second game.
Aside from 2024, that hasn’t necessarily been the case with the Eagles over the past handful of years. In 2023, the Eagles played the Commanders in Week 4 and then Week 8, and then they played the Giants in Week 16 and 18. In 2022, they played the Giants in Weeks 14 and 18. In 2021, they played Washington in Weeks 15 and 17, and the Giants in Weeks 12 and 16. Bunching those games together feels needlessly dumb.
Another thing to think about with the divisional games is that it’s really nice to play the Giants near or at the very end of the season. It’s fun to have a cupcake going into the postseason.
Tough opponents
It’s easier to list the teams that the Eagles are playing in 2025 that aren’t good teams: the Cowboys, the Giants, the Bears, and the Raiders. Those four teams make up six of the Eagles' games.
That means the Eagles are playing 11 games against teams that made the playoffs last season, six games against teams that made it to the divisional round, four games against teams that made it to the conference championship round, and then another one against the Chiefs.
On top of that, seven of their nine away games are against those teams. There are no bones about it: This is a very tough schedule, and deservingly so.
The best thing that can happen is for these games to get split up with the easy opponents. That way, if the Eagles do have a tough two-game stretch, they can beat up on a pipsqueak team like the Cowboys or the Raiders and get right before diving back into the fire.
What we don’t want to see on the schedule is a stretch with the Bills, the Chiefs, the Commanders, the Rams, the Broncos and then the Commanders again. That’s the kind of stretch where bad losses start to pile up.
Let’s not do that again — 2023 sucked.