Eagles aren’t playing two Friday games, Fox wanted less Cowboys, and other schedule questions answered
The Eagles have a pretty balanced schedule, with no three-game road trips and a bye in Week 9. It's just their opponents that are tough.
Following the release of the full 2025 schedule, the NFL had some Eagles fans scratching their heads.
In Week 13, the Eagles will host the Chicago Bears in Amazon’s Black Friday game on Nov. 28. A few weeks later, the Eagles will face the Washington Commanders in a Week 16 matchup at Northwest Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 20.
Except on NFL.com, which had it and another Week 16 game — Green Bay Packers vs. Chicago Bears — listed as taking place on Friday, Dec. 19, according to ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio. Adding to the confusion is the Eagles’ website has both the date and time listed as “TBD,” even though their own story notes the correct date.
The NFL confirmed to The Inquirer the Eagles-Commanders game is, in fact, taking place Dec. 20, though it’s start time has yet to be determined — it will be 4:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. Eastern.
One additional wrinkle about that game is it will be going head-to-head with the first round of the College Football Playoffs, with three games scheduled to take place Dec. 20. Unlike Christmas Day, this isn’t a case of trying to kick another league off its own turf, since the NFL has scheduled games the third Saturday in December for 37 of the last 40 years.
“It’s an expanded feature of the college schedule,” said Onnie Bose, the NFL’s vice president of broadcasting who also happens to be a Lower Merion High School grad. “The calendars are challenging.”
Disappointment in the Cowboys drove Week 1 decision
To say the Eagles’ schedule is front loaded with big games is an understatement.
The Birds will kick off the 2025 season against the hated Dallas Cowboys, one of the NFL’s best rivalries in what has traditionally been one of the league’s most-watched games. Last year’s kickoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs drew 29.2 million viewers, the fourth most-watched regular-season game last year.
The league looked at a number of other teams to face the Birds in Week 1, including the Washington Commanders, the Los Angeles Rams, and Detroit Lions. But NFL schedule makers landed on Dallas in part because of late-season slides like last season, where the Eagles-Cowboys matchup in Week 17 was so unappealing it was flexed out of a national broadcast window and moved to 1 p.m.
The Eagles raising their Super Bowl banner in front of the Cowboys at the Linc was also a factor in picking the game, Bose said.
Fox also wanted fewer Cowboys games in their coveted 4:25 p.m. window, executive Mike Mulvihill told The Athletic’s Richard Deitch. Instead of five of six Cowboys games in their national TV window, Fox has just three Dallas games scheduled at 4:25 p.m.
“What we wanted for this year was more AFC, more Philly, but also more Detroit and a little more Washington to try to capitalize on the Jayden Daniels story,” Mulvihill said. “Sometimes we’ve heard exasperation from fans that the Fox 4:25 game is always the Cowboys.”
» READ MORE: Predict each game this season and compare with other fans and our writers
Why do the Eagles have to wait until Week 16 to face the Commanders?
To the extent there were any gripes about the Eagles’ schedule, complaints were mostly centered around the Birds being forced to wait until the end of the season to play their two games against the Commanders over the span of three weeks in Week 16 and Week 18.
A similar clumping of games late in the season happened in 2023 with the Giants and in 2021 with the Commanders. Bose said there was no specific reason they opted for things to break out that way, other than a desire to schedule as many divisional games late in the season as possible.
“Division games late in the season matter,” Bose said. “Playing a team in the division twice in three weeks might feel like a lot, but it does happen.”
Those two Commanders games will sandwich a high-profile matchup against MVP Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills in Week 17, a three-game stretch columnist David Murphy said was as tough as “a well-done flank steak.”
Other things to know about the Eagles’ 2025 schedule
A more balanced schedule: For the first time since 2008, the Eagles don’t have back-to-back home games. Bose said that could be a good thing, since it also means the away games are more equally divided and the Birds also don’t have any three-game road trips. “Really, it’s about as balanced as you can get, including a bye smack dab in the middle at Week 9,” Bose said.
A true Super Bowl rematch: The NFL decided to roll out Eagles-Chiefs in Week 2 because they wanted it to feel like a true Super Bowl rematch. If they had waited to play it in October or November, Bose said it might have shifted to feel like a potential preview of the 2026 Super Bowl in Santa Clara.
Rest disparity not an issue for the Eagles: A few years ago, the Eagles complained to the NFL over what they felt was a lack of rest compared to other teams. This season, the Eagles face just one team coming off their bye week — the Minnesota Vikings in Week 7. They also be on an additional day’s rest when they face the Chiefs in Week 2, the Cowboys in Week 11, and the Bills in Week 17.
No Week 1 double doubleheader: For the second-straight season, the NFL moved back it’s “double doubleheader” — when both CBS and Fox have 4:25 p.m. national games — to Week 15. Part of the reason is because the NFL wants to highlight playoff races, but another is with the Friday night game in Brazil, it leave one less marquee game on the schedule to pluck from.
When do Eagles tickets go on sale? That’s the million dollar question. A date has yet to be announced, but last year single-game tickets went on sale June 18.