The New England Patriots’ 2025 schedule is out. Here is the full slate of 17 regular-season games:
The Patriots also announced their three preseason games: Aug. 8 vs. the Washington Commanders, Aug. 16 at the Minnesota Vikings, and Aug. 21 at the New York Giants.
And here are five takeaways from the schedule release:
1. The Vrabel era begins against Brady’s Raiders
The Patriots as an organization have still not found their footing since Tom Brady left in March 2020. They are hoping that Mike Vrabel will be the coach who finally ushers in the proper reset they need to get on track and start building towards Super Bowl contention.
And Vrabel’s first regular-season game will be against… Brady’s new team, the Las Vegas Raiders. This will be the first time the Patriots have played the Raiders since Brady was approved as a minority owner of the team last October.
So, will Brady be in the house in Foxborough Week 1??? No official word yet, but if we had to guess… probably not. As of now, all indications are that Brady will be back in the booth this season for Year 2 as FOX’s lead color commentator. If he is, he will presumably be working FOX’s biggest Week 1 game that day, which will not be Patriots-Raiders.
That’s probably for the best, if we’re being honest. Vrabel and the Patriots might prefer to keep everyone’s attention on this year’s team and not have his very first game turn into another Tom Brady Day at Gillette Stadium.
The Raiders will be bringing another familiar face into Foxborough, though, as this game will also be the first for their new head coach: Pete Carroll. It will also be a revenge game for Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who was fired from his job as Raiders head coach in October 2023.
2. It’s one of the easiest schedules in the NFL
One of the silver linings of being as bad as the Patriots were last season is that you generally get one of the easiest schedules the next season thanks to the NFL’s unbalanced scheduling formula. Based on 2024 winning percentages, that is the case here.
The Patriots’ 2025 opponents had a combined winning percentage of just .429 last season. Only the New Orleans Saints and San Francisco 49ers have a lower opponent winning percentage going into the season.
The Patriots get to face the last-place teams from the AFC South, AFC West and NFC East – the Tennessee Titans, Raiders and New York Giants, respectively – in addition to every team from the AFC North and NFC South, plus the traditional pair of games against each of their AFC East rivals (the Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins and New York Jets).
It’s also a favorable schedule in terms of travel. The Patriots will have nine home games vs. eight road games. They aren’t playing any international games this season. And their furthest trip west is only to New Orleans. Forget the West Coast; the Pats don’t even have to fly west of the Mississippi River.
They do have three road games in a row Weeks 5-7, though, which is a little unusual. Still, Buffalo, New Orleans and Nashville aren’t exactly taxing trips in terms of travel – and the latter two could be especially popular destinations for fans looking to get on the road this fall.
If you’re optimistic about this season and think the Patriots can contend for a playoff spot in Vrabel’s first year, this schedule – at least on paper – certainly works in your favor. Of course, they still have to go out and prove they can actually take advantage of it.
3. The primetime games are ticking up
Last year, the Patriots only had one primetime game all season – a miserable 24-3 loss to the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football in Week 3. That’s what happens when the league and its TV partners expect you to be bad going into the season, and then you prove them right.
The Patriots’ 2025 schedule might suggest that the decision-makers are anticipating Vrabel’s squad will be at least a little more watchable. While it’s still a far cry from the attention the Pats got during the Brady years, they will be in primetime three times this season.
The first is a Week 5 Sunday Night Football game in Buffalo against a Bills team that is aiming for its sixth straight AFC East title. The Patriots may not be ready to challenge Buffalo for that title just yet, but this will nonetheless be a great early-season test for Vrabel, Drake Maye and company – especially if they can take advantage of a relatively soft first four games. Assuming he's cleared to play by then, it will also be a revenge game for new Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs.
The second is a Week 11 home game against the Jets on Thursday Night Football – the rivals’ first of two meetings in 2025. Everyone plays at least one Thursday night game, and they’re often division games, so no real surprise here.
The third is a bit of a surprise: Week 13 Monday Night Football against the Giants. Two teams that picked in the top five this year meeting in primetime in December? The NFL and ESPN might just be hoping that two teams in big TV markets are still relevant enough to make a decent bookend for a Thanksgiving weekend that has most of its best matchups reserved for Thursday and Friday. The league does have the option to flex this game out if there ends up being a better Sunday game to move into this spot.
4. Late bye before tough stretch
The Patriots won’t have their bye week until Week 14, the latest any team can have one. Teams generally prefer to have their bye right around the midway point of the season, but this might not be the worst time for one if you’re New England.
If the Patriots do manage to get themselves into the playoff hunt, they may very well relish getting a break to gear up for the final push, not to mention what looks like their toughest two-week stretch of the season.
The Pats come out of the bye with a Week 15 home game against the Bills and then a Week 16 trip to Baltimore. It’s the only time all season they have back-to-back games against teams that made the playoffs last year, and they happen to be two teams with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations.
The Patriots then wrap up the season with two more divisional games, at the Jets in Week 17 and home against the Dolphins in Week 18. Yes, this is one of those seasons where New England has to go to Miami in the September heat, while the Dolphins get to come up to Foxborough in the dead of winter. If the Patriots are playing for anything in that final game, they may be thankful for any weather advantage they can get.
5. Maye faces one 2024 QB classmate, but maybe several rookies
Drake Maye was part of a potentially historic first round in 2024, one that saw six quarterbacks go in the first 12 picks. Maye won his only head-to-head meeting with one of those classmates last year, as the Patriots went into Chicago and beat first overall pick Caleb Williams and the Bears, 19-3.
This year, he’ll have just one head-to-head showdown again, with the Patriots scheduled to host eighth overall pick Michael Penix and the Atlanta Falcons in Week 9. Penix supplanted Kirk Cousins as the starter late last season and is expected to retain the job this year, even though the Falcons have not yet traded away Cousins.
The Patriots could face several rookie quarterbacks, though. First overall pick Cam Ward is expected to start for the Tennessee Titans right away, and they’re on the schedule in Week 7. The second quarterback taken, Jaxson Dart, is expected to sit behind Russell Wilson for the Giants all season, but perhaps something changes by the time the Patriots face them in Week 13.
The third, Tyler Shough, may very well be starting for the Saints, New England’s Week 6 opponent, now that Derek Carr has retired. The Patriots face the Browns in Week 8, and who the heck knows what they’re doing at quarterback. They have two rookies – Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders – who could be competing for playing time, with only Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett standing in their way.
Speaking of “what the heck are they doing,” may we present the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3. They still haven’t made any notable additions to their QB room after letting Wilson and Justin Fields walk in free agency, leaving their top two quarterbacks at the moment as career backup Mason Rudolph and sixth-round rookie Will Howard. Of course, the expectation all offseason has been that Pittsburgh will eventually be the landing spot for Aaron Rodgers. That still hasn’t actually happened, though, so let’s see where this goes.
It's also worth noting that Maye could face 2024 classmates Jayden Daniels and JJ McCarthy in the preseason, depending on how much each of those quarterbacks plays.