Tuley’s Takes: NFL Regular Season Schedule

Tuley’s Takes – NFL Regular Season Schedule:

With the NFL schedule officially released on Wednesday night (though we do get more and more leaks every year, though it’s pretty obvious the league has long done this to build interest), we definitely feel in the Tuley’s Takes home office that the 2025 season is truly underway.

We also anxiously await schedule release day because that’s when football contests here in Las Vegas can officially lock in their rules, especially for Circa Survivor, which will be announcing its rules (as it relies on Thanksgiving and Christmas “weeks” in its unique 20-week format) next Thursday here at VSiN along with Derek Stevens’ guarantees for the prize pools.

I’m here today to give my “takes” on the schedule release. As stated above, we knew a lot of things heading into the official announcement. For instance, I saw ESPN’s Adam Schefter post Thursday that the 49ers have the easiest schedule based on last year’s winning percentages. That was interesting to note, but we already knew that from January, as every team’s schedule is set by the standings).

So let’s go over the 2025 NFL schedule and give our initial takes, especially those that can lead to some bets now or over the summer.

Week 1

The Week 1 lines always get the most attention with the schedule release, and I’ll give my annual spring “too-early” takes in a separate column next week. But I do have a few things that jumped off the page, and I can’t wait until that article to share.

We knew on Monday that the season-opener would be the Cowboys at the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles. The Eagles are a solid 7-point home favorite, and I usually love me some divisional underdogs, but I’ll probably be passing on opening night (see my take on the Cowboys below).

* The Chiefs play the Chargers in the second-annual Friday night opener in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Chiefs were the AFC’s top seed at 15-2 last year and easily got the first-round bye, but the Chargers made a run at them at 11-6 and could close the gap some more. However, the short 2.5-point spread isn’t enough for me to consider betting the Chargers now. If these lines are still there after Labor Day, when I’m making my Week 1 picks, I would probably just tease the Eagles -1 to the Chargers +8.5, plus each to some games on Sunday. 

* Speaking of teasers, there are an abnormally high number of Week 1 lines (14 of the 16 games from my count) in what I call the “teaser zone” (-7 to -8.5 favorites that can teased under a field goal or +1.5 to +2.5 underdogs that can be teased up over a touchdown), so that could be the basic strategy for a lot of those games. As of Friday’s writing, the only games in “no man’s land” are the Bengals -5.5 at the Browns and the Cardinals -4.5 at the Saints.

Week 2 Fireworks

It didn’t take the schedule maker long to give us a rematch of the Super Bowl in Week 2 with the Eagles visiting the Chiefs as 1.5-point road underdogs. I get why oddsmakers have the Chiefs favored at home; however, I think most people forget how much the Eagles dominated back in February. Sure, it’s a new season and the Chiefs are still loaded, but I think we have to take the Eagles plus any points and be more likely to bet more on the money line than wanting to tease them over a touchdown. I’ll only be teasing this game if the market flips and moves the Eagles to favoritism, then I would take the Chiefs teased over a TD.

Survivor Impact

The consensus out there is that the Broncos will be the most-picked team in Survivor pools in Week 1 as they’re hosting the Titans. But I know from covering Circa Survivor all these years, plus proxying for some contestants, that an increasing amount are becoming believers that you can’t take the “obvious” picks in Week 1 or early in the season, as there’s been so much carnage. The more I’ve been looking at the schedule the more I think the Commanders, who are hosting the Giants and are also 7.5-point favorites, could challenge for the No. 1 pick.

* But the bigger news for Survivor players, at least those in Circa’s version with the Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks, is that the Chiefs, Lions and Cowboys are playing on both holidays. We’re used to the Lions and Cowboys having their traditional home games on Turkey Day, but now they’re also playing on Christmas. In most years, there’s an obvious team or two that many contestants try to save for the holiday weeks, but at first blush the Chiefs at the Cowboys on Thanksgiving will be the most popular play, or maybe the Eagles vs. the Bears on Black Friday (which is part of Thanksgiving “week”), depending on how good you think the Bears will be this season. The Christmas schedule is especially tough with the only games being Cowboys-Commanders, Lions-Vikings and Broncos-Chiefs. My VSiN colleague Adam Burke has also written about these holiday schedules.

Fading the Cowboys

Last year, a lot of people were saying the Cowboys were losing a lot of key players, but I felt they still had enough core talented players to have a good season (especially as I see the NFL turning more into a passing league where a lot of shortcomings can be overcome with a high-scoring offense with the defenses handcuffed so much) and even had a 20-1 bet on them to win the Super Bowl. But the others were right as the Cowboys struggled to a 7-10 record and a distant third place in the NFC East behind the Eagles and Commanders. My first thought was that they would bounce back this season, but the schedule maker didn’t do them any favors with a stretch from Week 12 to 17 against the Eagles, Chiefs, Lions, Chargers and Commanders, all teams that won 11 or more games last season. I’ll be shopping around to be the Under on the Cowboys’ season win total.

NFC North is Still Dangerous

Many have mentioned how the Lions and Bears have the second- and third-toughest schedules, but let’s not forget that the NFC North has to play each other twice. All four teams started last year really strong with the Lions, Vikings, and Packers, plus the Bears before they fell apart. I wouldn’t hold any of this against any of these teams. However, if one team is to have a negative impact from the schedule, it’s the Vikings, who will become the first team to be forced to play back-to-back international games in Week 4 in Ireland vs. the Steelers and Week 5 in England vs. the Browns. It’s unprecedented how teams react to that kind of travel. So, if looking to fade any NFC North team in Over/Under season win totals, I’d look at the Vikings.