2025 NFL schedule release winners and losers, plus ranking best revenge games and Colts’ video controversy

Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter! 

I’m guessing you’ve probably heard by now, but in case you haven’t: THE 2025 NFL SCHEDULE HAS BEEN RELEASED. 

If you’re wondering why I’m writing in all caps, it’s because I’ve had 12 cups of coffee since yesterday morning and my brain is so fried that I’m not even sure the color green exists anymore. 

Anyway, I’m guessing you already know what we’re going to be covering today, and if you guessed the NFL schedule, then you are correct. We’re going to cover the schedule release, the schedule release and more schedule release. If you missed the schedule release, you can see a list of all 272 games here.

As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. Let’s get to the rundown. 

1. Winners and losers from NFL schedule release day

Like everything in life, there were winners and there were losers during the NFL’s schedule release on Wednesday. Tyler Sullivan sifted through all 272 games on the schedule to try and figure out who came out of the schedule release as a winner and who came out as a loser, and here’s what he came up with: 

WINNERS

• Commanders. “The Commanders have eight standalone games in 2025, which is tied for the most in the league with the Cowboys and Chiefs. That’s also the most standalone games in a season since 2000. To think just a couple of seasons ago Washington was at the bottom of the NFL barrel at 4-13 and is now one of the more in-demand teams is quite the rags-to-riches story.”
• 49ers. “Not only do they have the easiest strength of schedule in 2025, but the 49ers will square off against just three teams that made the playoffs in 2024: Rams (twice), Texans and Buccaneers. The Niners also have a well-situated bye week coming in Week 14. After that, three of their final four games on the season are at home, with their lone road game being in Indianapolis to face the Colts.”

LOSERS

• Cowboys. “Dallas faces a harrowing gauntlet of the likes that no NFL team has seen before, and that’s not hyperbole. From Week 12 to Week 17, the Cowboys will face the Eagles, Chiefs, Lions (road), Vikings, Chargers and Commanders (road). That’s a run of six straight teams that won 11-plus games last season, a gauntlet that no team has ever faced before in league history.”
• Eagles. “The schedule-makers didn’t do the defending champions any favors when it comes to their 2025 schedule as they look to repeat. At no point during next season do the Eagles play back-to-back home games. … This makes Philadelphia the first-ever defending Super Bowl champion to not play back-to-back home games in the following regular season, adding an unprecedented wrinkle to their title defense.”

If you want to see Tyler’s full list of winners and losers, be sure to click here. 

2. Ranking the top revenge games on the 2025 NFL schedule

If there’s one thing we love to do around here, it’s rank things, so we decided to rank the best revenge games on the 2025 schedule.  

Since Cody Benjamin is the expert on revenge here at CBS Sports, we decided to let him handle the rankings. Here are the top three games on his list: 

1. Week 2: Eagles at Chiefs (Sept. 14). “It’s the rematch of all rematches. The Eagles thoroughly embarrassed the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX; the 40-22 final score doesn’t even do it justice. Yet how can anyone count out a potentially lethal resurgence from Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and Co.? This one’s at Arrowhead, which should give the Chiefs a nice bump.”

2. Week 9: Chiefs at Bills (Nov. 2). “This isn’t just a rematch of the AFC Championship game, where the Chiefs once again outlasted the would-be heroics of Josh Allen’s Bills to reach the big stage. It’s also the latest chapter in what’s become an annual Allen versus Patrick Mahomes slugfest.”

3. Week 16: Eagles at Commanders (Dec. 20). “These two teams were always going to meet as NFC East rivals, but it’s hard to oversell this one’s potential friction after the rivals duked it out three different times in 2024; two of those games were high-scoring shootouts, and the third saw the Eagles run away with the NFC Championship game.”

If you want to check out Cody’s full rankings, be sure to click here. And I promise, there are games on the list that don’t involve the Chiefs or Eagles. 

3. NFL schedule breakdown: One good thing and one bad thing on each team’s schedule

The NFL spends a lot of time every year putting the schedule together, and although the league does its best to make sure every team is happy, the fact of the matter is that making everyone happy is impossible when you’re putting together a schedule that consists of 272 games.  

With that in mind, I went through all 32 schedules to find one thing that should make each team happy about their schedule and one thing they’re probably irate about. Let’s check out three teams: 

RAIDERS

• One good thing for the Raiders: The Raiders get to close the season by playing seven of their final eight games indoors. That could be a good thing for new quarterback Geno Smith, who has a career QB rating above 100 when playing indoors. In 16 games, he’s thrown 31 touchdown passes compared to just six interceptions. He has also averaged 243.8 passing yards per game when playing indoors, which is well above his career average of 203.6. If Smith plays like that, it could set the Raiders up for a strong finish. From Week 11 thru Week 18, their only outdoor game will come in Week 15 against the Eagles.
• One bad thing for the Raiders: The Raiders better get off to a hot start this season, because there’s a good chance they’re not going to win very many games down the stretch. Over the final six weeks of the season, the Raiders will be facing five teams that made the playoffs last year, including both Super Bowl teams (Chiefs and Eagles). It also doesn’t help that three of those games — against the Eagles, Texans and Chargers — will come on the road. The only upside here, as we already mentioned, is that most of these games are indoors. 

RAMS

• One good thing for the Rams: The Rams have a chance to go down in NFL history and that’s because they could become the first team ever to pull off the bird gauntlet, which is where one team beats all five bird teams in one season. Part of the reason it’s never happened is because most teams don’t face all five bird teams, but the Rams will get to face the Eagles, Ravens, Seahawks, Cardinals and Falcons this year. This might not seem like a big deal right now, but trust me, if they get close, that’s all anyone will be talking about later in the season. 
• One bad thing for the Rams: The Rams got hit with four road games that will start at 10 a.m. PT, which is about the worst kickoff time you can get as a West Coast team. Since the start of the 2022 season, the Rams are 4-5 in games played in the Central or Eastern time zones. Two of their first three games will come at 10 a.m. (at Titans, at Eagles) along with two games that will go down later in the season (at Ravens, at Panthers). 

VIKINGS

• One good thing for the Vikings: The fact that the Vikings are playing two international games actually seems to be a good thing for them. With two neutral-site games on their schedule, that means they’ll now go six full weeks without playing a true road game. It also means they’ll only play seven road games this year while every other team in the NFC North will play nine.   
• One bad thing for the Vikings: The Vikings will be facing a nightmare stretch coming out of their Week 6 bye. Starting in Week 7, they’ll face the Eagles (home), Chargers (away), Lions (away) and Ravens (home). We should learn a lot about J.J. McCarthy during that stretch, and if he can’t handle things during those four weeks, it will be hard to view the Vikings as a serious contender. 

We covered 29 more teams, and if you want to see one good thing and one bad thing from each team’s schedule, you can do that here. 

4. NFL schedule overreactions: Did the NFL really need to put the Cowboys and Lions on Christmas? 

Everyone on the internet loves to overreact to things, and that’s especially true when we’re talking about the the NFL. With that in mind, Jeff Kerr decided to take a look at some of the biggest headlines from the release of the NFL schedule to decide if we’re all overreacting. 

Statement: It’s stupid to have the Lions and Cowboys play on Christmas. 
Overreaction or reality: Reality. “Did the NFL really have to pin the Thanksgiving traditionalists on Christmas? The Lions are good and the Cowboys always draw massive ratings, but why did the league insist on having both teams play? Isn’t the point of having a Christmas tripleheader every year to feature teams that don’t traditionally have a holiday game? Pretty lame for the NFL to have three teams that are playing on Thanksgiving playing on Christmas, especially when two of them play on Thanksgiving every year.”

Statement: Chiefs play in too many prime-time games. 
Overreaction or reality: Reality. “The NFL decided to give the Chiefs seven prime-time games — the most in the league. The Chiefs are playing in five prime-time games over the first eight weeks, tied for the most of any team in NFL history. … Kansas City is in the national window too much, but the Chiefs deliver massive ratings. The NFL clearly used high ratings as part of its scheduling formula for networks this year.”

Statement: The Commanders and Eagles playing twice in 15 days is a good thing. 
Overreaction or reality: Overreaction. “For the two teams that faced off in the NFC Championship game last season, this is really late in the schedule for both teams to play. Wouldn’t it have made sense for one of these games to be early in the season? What happens if Jalen Hurts or Jayden Daniels gets hurt in December and can’t play? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the must-see matchup? And one or both teams may have nothing to play for in Week 18, so some starters may not play. The NFL is taking a huge gamble with both the Eagles and Commanders being healthy and good in December and January. This could blow up in their face.”

There are plenty more overreactions from the release of the schedule and we’ve got Jeff’s full list here. 

5. Ranking schedule release videos: Colts produce one of the best, but end up deleting it

One of the best things about the schedule release is the fact that each team comes out with its own schedule release video. I have not had enough time to watch every video just yet, but lucky for us, Austin Nivison volunteered himself to not only watch every video last night, but he also ranked EVERY single one of them. 

Here are the top three videos in Nivison’s rankings: 

1. Seahawks. The Seahawks video took the form of a mid-1990s action figure commercial. “This is very different from anything we’ve seen before, and it hits me right in the nostalgic part of my brain once again. Seeing these types of commercials during an episode of Power Rangers made me want to grab $20 out of my dad’s wallet like a little kleptomaniac and sprint to the local Target for an action figure. Well done, Seattle.” (WATCH SEATTLE’S VIDEO HERE). 

2. Falcons. The Falcons made a video that all Mario Kart fans will appreciate. “If you give me Mario Kart content, I’m probably gonna enjoy it. If you give me Mario Kart content with jokes about GTA VI and Kyler Murray’s Call of Duty habit, I’m probably gonna enjoy it even more.” (WATCH ATLANTA’S VIDEO HERE). 

3. Colts. The Colts used a Minecraft theme in their video. “The Colts’ Minecraft release video was perfect. I didn’t have to play the game to get it because most of the jokes are at the expense of their opponents, and they pulled absolutely zero punches (i.e. Tyreek Hill, Kirk Cousins, Pat Mahomes, etc.).”

There was some controversy with the Colts’ video and they actually ended up deleting it on Wednesday night. So why did they get rid of it? The Colts offered an answer on Thursday. “We removed our schedule release video because it exceeded our rights with Microsoft and included an insensitive clip involving Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill,” the team said in a statement. “We sincerely apologize to Microsoft and Tyreek.”

The Hill joke involved an actual Dolphin being arrested by the Coast Guard. Although the Colts deleted the video, you can still see it here, but you better watch it soon before it gets erased from the internet forever. 

As for the rest of the schedule release videos, you can see Nivison’s full rankings here. And just in case you’re wondering, the Dolphins finished in dead last. 

6. Extra points: Derrick Henry lands two-year extension

This is always a busy time in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that’s happening, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you. 

• Derrick Henry agrees to terms on two-year extension. The Ravens running back will be sticking around Baltimore through 2027 after agreeing to terms on a two-year, $30 million extension, which includes $25 million in guarantees. Henry is now the third-highest paid running back in the NFL. We have more details on his signing here. 
• Steelers owner not a huge fan of Pittsburgh’s late-season schedule. The Steelers will be playing two prime-time games over the second half of the season and apparently, owner/team president Art Rooney II is NOT a fan of that. “We’re not crazy about having the night games late in the season,” Rooney said, via the team’s official website. “It happens, and it’s not a big, big deal, but we would prefer not to have too many night games late in the season.” The Steelers are scheduled to play the Chargers on the road in Week 10 in a Sunday night game. After that, they also have a Monday night home game against the Dolphins in Week 15. 
• Steelers getting a new helmet and new throwbacks. We learned last week that the Steelers would be one of five teams getting a new alternate helmet this year, and now, we know when they’ll be debuting their new look. Rooney said the new helmet will be worn for the first time in a Week 8 showdown with the Packers. It’s a Sunday night game and it could get even more interesting if Aaron Rodgers ends up signing with the Steelers. 
• Packers Pro Bowler wants a raise. The Packers might have a problem on their offensive line. Two-time Pro Bowler Elgton Jenkins is being asked to move from left guard to center, but he wants to rework his contract before he agrees to that, according to ESPN. Jenkins hasn’t been showing up to voluntary workouts and it doesn’t sound like he plans on showing up until his deal is restructured. 
• NFL owners to vote on Olympic resolution. At next week’s owners meeting in Minneapolis, there will be a vote about whether active players will be allowed to participate in Flag Football during the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. If the rule is approved, only one player per team would be allowed to participate to minimize injury risk for any one team.