2025 NFL schedule release: The league wants it to be a big deal, but is it?

The NFL has mastered making content out of anything and this week is always an annual reminder of that.

On Wednesday, the NFL will officially announce the 2025 schedule for all 32 of its teams. To be clear the opponents each team will play are well known and understood, but the sequence of which it all happens is not.

Historically there have been leaks about the schedule that emerge as the process unfolds, so much so that the league has begun leaking things in an official sense by way of their broadcast partners. Again… they can create content out of anything.

We here at The Skinny Post, Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa, naturally have some thoughts on it all and the latest happenings around the league as a whole.

Let’s begin.

Does the schedule release matter to you?

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RJ:

Beyond what we do here at SB Nation… I absolutely love the NFL schedule release.

To be clear I don’t necessarily need the hour-long shows that break it down, but I definitely want to look at the path that my team is going to be taking. When games happen matter relative to cold weather and rest advantages or disadvantages. All of that means something.

What’s more is that unlike any other sport… football controls our lives. It is nice to be able to finally plan the fall and winter parts of life what with being able to adjust around this or that.

Give me the schedule now.

Michael:

Absolutely it does. The schedule release — the literal release of information, not the hours of redundant analysis that takes up the entire week — is incredibly fun and something I look forward to every year. As the Chargers guy here, it’s been our “Super Bowl” (that’s so sad to say but still). The Chargers have crushed it every single time as a chronically-online franchise that stays extra plugged into to pop culture.

The anime and Sims-inspired videos they did in 2022 and 2023 were elite. Still the best ones I’ve ever seen. If the Chargers broke out a third anime-adjacent schedule release video, I’d still be over the moon. That will never get old for me.

As a football fan, would you rather have your favorite team play their toughest opponents earlier or later in the season?

Michael:

Sort of running along the lines of the NFL schedule release, I’ve been wondering to myself whether or not I’d like to see my favorite team fight through a tough opening gauntlet to begin the season before somewhat coasting through a cakewalk in the latter half of the year or if it’d be more ideal to get warmed up with the softer matchups before finally facing the contenders later on.

I can see both sides. It’s not a ton of fun to start your season 0-1 and it’s even worse to see them struggle to a 1-3 or 2-4 record through that first month or so. But being able to look further down and see a bunch of potential 3-10 or 4-9 teams during those final few weeks, now that would do wonders for the psyche.

On the other side, sitting 5-1 would feel great but I’m sure we’ve all seen time and time again how teams that start hot can end up fumbling the bag down the stretch. Do you remember when the entire NFC North was 4-2 or better through Week 6 last year? Well, the Bears ended up losing A LOT over the final two months before earning another top-10 draft pick.

I think if I had to pick one or the other, I’m going with the tough early stretch. Mentally, I’d stay hopeful that they could end up winning at least one or two of those games where they may not have been favored early on and then I have to hope they stay competitive and don’t play down to the level of the inferior teams through November and December.

RJ:

Personally speaking I would much rather have the easier games at the front of the schedule. If I am getting super specific though, it isn’t even about what is easy and what is hard.

One of my biggest gripes is when divisional games are at the front of the schedule. Teams change SO much through the course of a season… those division games are so valuable and impactful. I want those to happen when teams have become who they truly are.

In that respect I honestly don’t care too much about easy or hard, but value as noted. Put the most important games at the end so we can see everything on the line with the playoffs around the corner.

What is the best day for your team to play a game?

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RJ:

It was announced bright and early on Monday morning that the Dallas Cowboys, aka my team, will be visiting the Philadelphia Eagles in the league’s kickoff game on Thursday, September 4th. Outside of how annoying Eagles fans are going to be about it all… I absolutely love this.

Why do I love this? Regardless of what happens in the first game of the year, the Cowboys are winning by the way, and my first Sunday is now open and available to hang out with Scott Hanson all day on the Redzone Channel.

The absolute best day of the week for your team to play is any day other than Sunday so that you can enjoy all of the action without having to focus. Nobody can convince me of any other potential truth.

Michael:

Oh, 1,000 percent. When you’re working in the football media space, Sundays are always a long, long day. When your team plays on Thursday or Monday, that free Sunday feels like the greatest day of the year. When you work in football, you don’t have many moments to truly feel like a fan that can kick back, crack a cold beverage, and enjoy football without having to do some level of mental analysis while watching.

The NFL season is long and it may only be getting longer if the NFLPA ever agrees to an 18-game regular season. Outside of when your team plays on a day that’s not Sunday, a legitimate bye week is the next best thing. Watching your co-workers in the trenches on an NFL Sunday knowing you get to chill across a whole weekend?

Priceless.

Should we put any weight in highlights from rookie minicamps?

Michael:

Rookie minicamps are the first taste fans get of their team’s newest players performing out on the football field. Those small sessions began rolling last week and like we do every year, we got plenty of media content from all the teams, including those with some of the more polarizing rookies in the league (*cough cough* Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel *cough cough*).

From the Browns, we got videos of Sanders and Gabriel throwing back-to-back “dimes” to their wideouts. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to hand both of their young passers a share of the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year honor!

Of course I’m so, so kidding, but it’s exciting to see these two successful collegiate quarterbacks going at it nonetheless, a la RGIII and Kirk Cousins in Washington. However, as cool as it is to see a bunch of new faces in new places in the football world, minicamps are simply what they are — a short practice session to get rookies acclimated to the way the NFL likes to do things. Believe it or not, it’s also expected that the best rookies would be making plays the moment they hit the practice field. So for me, these are all nothing-burgers. The bar is set at “make plays.” If they looked anything short of “good” then maybe we’d hold some weight in these minicamp observations, but as far as the positives, that’s just par for the course at this point in the offseason.

RJ:

My standpoint on this is that I am fine if someone wants to get excited about it, but I certainly will not be doing so myself.

I think this should be true for all levels of practice to be clear. We can discern legitimate things from stuff like training camp obviously, but practice is still ultimately practice.

This being said… go for it. Run wild. Get crazy if you want to. I love all sports and am enjoying everything happening in the non-football season, but we are football-starved. If you want to freak out because of a “highlight” during a minicamp practice then be my guest.