NFL Holiday Games
The release of the highly-anticipated 2025 schedule includes six NFL holiday games and then another on Black Friday. The three games on Christmas happen to fall on Thursdays this year, so it’s just like having to play on Thursday, as opposed to the really quirky schedule we had last year for Christmas on Wednesday. However, for Circa Survivor players, the holiday games create quite a conundrum this season anyway.
I’ll be putting together my Circa Survivor blueprint for all 18 weeks article soon, but there is one very obvious consideration in this year’s contest. While we await the announcement for the prize guarantees for the Circa Survivor and Circa Million, which will be announced live on Follow The Money on Thursday May 22, those who plan to enter the contest are already starting to analyze the schedule and plot out a path.
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Unfortunately, the main wrinkles in the contest – Thanksgiving and Christmas – got a little more wrinkly this year.
NFL Holiday Games: Thanksgiving/Black Friday
Thursday November 27
- Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions
- Kansas City Chiefs at Dallas Cowboys
- Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens
Friday November 28
- Chicago Bears at Philadelphia Eagles
NFL Holiday Games: Christmas
Thursday December 25
- Dallas Cowboys at Washington Commanders
- Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings
- Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs
Let’s start with the obvious. The Lions, Cowboys, and Chiefs are on both lists and two of them even play each other on Thanksgiving. So, right away, that likely whittles down the available number of teams to pick from for those holiday games. The Lions and Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving, so it has long been a consideration in Survivor pools with the “Thanksgiving as its own week” rule to save them because you wouldn’t want to take one of them with major injuries, say a quarterback or cluster injuries at wide receiver.
It is vitally important to keep as many teams open as possible if your contest includes Circa Survivor-esque rules. Well, not only do the Cowboys, Lions, and Chiefs play on those days, but are you really going to be eager, at least as of now, to take the Vikings against the Lions or the Broncos against the Chiefs on Christmas? The Commanders look like the best choice, which means you have to hold them back until Week 17, even though there may be better, higher-probability situations to take them earlier in the season.
Two teams that are likely to be popular Survivor considerations are the Bears and Eagles. You might have to consider keeping them available now because that Black Friday game could become very important for the sake of your entry. Same with the Bengals and Ravens on Thanksgiving.
Sure, navigating until Week 13 or later is hard enough in and of itself, but if you do get to that point, you are going to need options. What we have on paper now may not be what we have on paper by the time these games are ready to go. What if Jalen Hurts is hurt? What if Jayden Daniels is out? What if Jared Goff is sidelined? If they get hurt early, you can adjust and adapt accordingly, but what if they get hurt the week prior? After all, football is a violent game and injuries happen frequently.
The NFL holiday games with the Circa Survivor rules definitely provide a challenge on an annual basis, but it sure seems even more difficult this season thanks to the NFL schedule makers.
