We’re just two short weeks away from the start of the 2025 NFL season. The Philadelphia Eagles kick everything off on Sept. 4, when they get to hang the banner that they got from beating the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX back in February.
Their 2025 schedule is tough, but having a Week 9 bye makes it pretty easy to split an 18-week season almost right in half. In that first half, the Cowboys, Chiefs, Rams, Buccaneers, Broncos, Giants and Vikings all get to play the reigning world champions. Somehow, that half of the schedule is significantly easier than the second half.
Predicting the first half of the Eagles' schedule
The 2024 season was pretty nice. Normally, you would think having a bye in Week 5 would be bad, but it came at just the right time: The Eagles went from starting with a 2-2 record to ending the season on a 16-1 run. It was great.
With a bye smack dab in the middle of the season this year, they can’t really afford to have a bad start like they did last season. The good news is that this part of the schedule gives them a little bit of leeway and a few chances for some "get right" games. It all starts with a matchup against a 32-year-old Dak Prescott, who is coming off an injury where he tore his hamstring off the bone. Buddy, it’s going to be sweet.
Week 1: vs. Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys not only stink subjectively, but also objectively. Their big move this offseason was getting George Pickens, which might be useful in Week 1. That’ll probably put a little pressure on the Eagles' defense, making it so that CeeDee Lamb can’t be their sole focus. That’s basic football.
Another basic football thing is that you want to be able to run the ball, and stop the run, and stop the pass. The problem (read: good thing for our purposes) is that the Cowboys aren’t going to be able to run the ball … or stop the run … or stop the pass. Their defense straight-up stinks, baby.
On top of that, Nick Sirianni has never lost a season opener. The team might start slow and look a little sloppy right off the bat, but it doesn’t matter.
The only edge (kind of) that the Cowboys have in this game is that they have new coaches. Brian Schottenheimer is their new head coach, Klayton Adams is their new offensive coordinator and Matt Eberflus is their new defensive coordinator. When you have that much new stuff in a building, in theory, it makes it hard to scout. I can’t imagine that’s going to be too much of an issue, though, because again, that team is largely void of talent.
Birds win 31-21, and start the season 1-0.
Week 2: at Kansas City Chiefs
A lot of the offseason discussion around the Chiefs is more about how the Ravens and the Bills have a chance to overtake them as the kings of the AFC, and less about how the Chiefs are still a good team. But while Patrick Mahomes and Co. are flying under the radar a bit too much, they’re not a better team than the Eagles.
The biggest problem that they had in the Super Bowl was that their offensive line got embarrassed. The big addition to that unit was left tackle Josh Simmons, whom they drafted in the first round.
Reports have said that he’s been the biggest surprise out of the Chiefs training camp, and he’s going to end up being good, but I imagine he’s still going to be getting into the swing of live NFL-level football by Week 2. If this game were later in the season, I’d give a little more credence to Simmons’ development, but he was the fifth offensive tackle taken in the draft so it’s not like he was the elite prospect.
On the other side of that coin, this Eagles defensive line, and specifically the edge rusher rotation, is still going to be feeling themselves out too. But I have more faith in Jalyx Hunt and Josh Uche beating up on a rookie than the other way around.
It won’t be as dominant a win as 40-6 in Super Bowl LIX. Birds win 24-20 off a Quinyon Mitchell interception as Patrick Mahomes tries to force a deep ball to Xavier Worthy on a would-be game-winning drive. The Eagles move to 2-0.
Week 3: vs. Los Angeles Rams
This is an incredibly tricky one to predict. Just this week, Matt Stafford has taken his first reps in training camp. He’s 37 years old and dealing with some kind of back thing. If he plays, then this game is going to be close. If he’s out and Jimmy Garoppolo is the starter, then good night.
I can see four possibilities with him: Stafford’s totally fine by the beginning of the season and nothing comes of this, or he misses the first few games and then eventually joins the team, or he starts in Week 1 but his back ends up getting worse, or he doesn’t start at all and we’ve seen the last of a legend.
This game is four weeks away, which is still a long time. I tend to err on the side of injury, and I think that a guy who’s played 16 seasons in the NFL might actually be pretty banged up. He can always get shots of some of that feel-good medicine, but a bad back is a bad back.
It’s "good night". Birds win 26-13 and move to 3-0.
Week 4: at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
At this point in the season, we’re all going to be feeling pretty good about ourselves. It turns out that having a relatively shaky CB2 isn’t that big of a problem when Vic Fangio is your defensive coordinator, and Jalen Hurts has started the season hot.
Then the Eagles have to take an all-too-familiar Week 4 trip down to Tampa Bay to see the Boogeyman that is the Todd Bowles defense in 90-ish degree heat. This is the game where the Eagles get punched in the mouth and humbled, which is a good thing, because they were never going to win this game to begin with.
One pathetic thing about me is that I check the weather months ahead of time. I’ve been checking the weather forecast for this game every week since the schedule came out. Luckily, the forecast (according to Accuweather) has gone from a “Real Feel” of 95 degrees down to 87 degrees. So that’s good.
Still, the Birds lose this game 31-17 and fall to 3-1.
Week 5: vs. Denver Broncos
The Broncos are going to be a good football team with a good defense. In the Sirianni era (minus the 2023 collapse), the Eagles have exposed most of the strong defenses that they’ve come across. A big part of that is Jeff Stoutland being one of the best football minds around and building a run game to break apart any defensive line.
But this Broncos defense is gnarly. They have John Franklin-Myers, D.J. Jones, Alex Singleton (who’s been good since he left Philadelphia) and the eminently hatable Dre Greenlaw. They also have All-Pros in Zach Allen, Nik Bonitto and Talanoa Hufanga, plus reigning Defensive Player of the Year Pat Surtain II. It’s a loaded defense on all levels.
This game is a toss-up, and it doesn’t help that it’s a double-revenge game. Fangio was the head coach of the Broncos from 2019 to 2021. He had his first revenge game against them when he was the Dolphins' defensive coordinator in 2023, and the revenge he got came to the tune of a 70-20 win.
Unfortunately, that was Sean Payton’s first year as the head coach of the Broncos. To assume that one of the minds behind Bountygate is reasonable and not driven by spite seems pretty, pretty, pretty dumb. He’s got his date with Fangio circled on his calendar, and he’s going to be looking to unload with Bo Nix.
This comes down to two things: It’s a home game for the Eagles, and the Broncos are going to be playing on a short week (they play on Monday night in Week 4).
It’ll be a race to 17 points, and I have no idea who comes out on top here. The final score is going to be 17-13. Just to jinx it, I’ll say the Broncos win and the Eagles fall to 3-2.
Week 6: at New York Giants
It’s a good week to come back from back-to-back losses. This is the Eagles' sole Thursday night game of 2025 (aside from Week 1, which doesn’t really count). That means they won’t have the chance or the time to think about the Broncos game before they get to take a bus up to MetLife Stadium.
The only thing that goes into this game is the level of panic for Giants general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll. If they’re 0-5, coming off a loss to the Saints, and smashing the panic button with a Gallagher-sized hammer, we’ll be seeing Jameis Winston or rookie Jaxson Dart instead of Russell Wilson.
Regardless, the Eagles win, but because it’s a Thursday night game and weird things happen in those spots, the final score is just 21-17. But the record moves to 4-2.
Week 7: at Minnesota Vikings
Good news! The Vikings are going to be coming off a bye week, and their head coach, Kevin O’Connell, isn’t one of those coaches who crushes teams when he has a rest advantage.
Since he took the job in 2022, Minnesota is 6-5 with extra rest. Better yet, when they are coming off the bye, he’s 2-1. One of those wins was in 2023 when they beat the Raiders in a 3-0 barn burner … so is that even a win? Technically, yes, but actually no.
None of that could matter, though. Minnesota’s starting quarterback is their 2024 first-round draft pick, J.J. McCarthy, who tore his meniscus last preseason and missed the entirety of his rookie season.
We simply have no idea about this guy. I choose to believe that he’s not some kind of super special talent and that he’ll struggle, especially against a Fangio defense that’s built to get in a quarterback’s brain.
McCarthy’s brain shuts down halfway through the second quarter, and the Eagles move to 5-2 off a 24-6 win.
Week 8: vs. New York Giants
The Giants are going to be dead. At this point, they’ll either have a 1-6 or 0-7 record (depending on their Week 5 game in New Orleans). Whatever the case, this team is going to be broken; it’s just about how broken they will be.
Giants owner John Mara is a ding-dong. If he wasn’t willing to fire Joe Judge during their 2021 season and he wasn’t willing to fire Daboll this offseason, then he probably isn’t going to pull the trigger during the season. Then again, the Giants have a very late Week 14 bye. If Mara’s going to make a change, logically, a good time to do it would be in a three-week stretch where they play the same team twice; that way you can kind of see how everything is different.
None of that matters, though. This game is going to be a blood bath. The Eagles have an opportunity to drop 50 points, but Saquon Barkley talks Sirianni out of keeping the starters in.
The final score is 45-20, and the Eagles go into the bye week with a 6-2 record.