When the curtain dropped on the Buffalo Bills’ 2025 NFL schedule, a few facts caught even the most well-connected of football writers by surprise. Bills Mafia had long-understood the teams Buffalo was to face in 2025, but the when and where were up in the air. Football fans are perhaps the most superstitious people around, and for good reasons. With only 17 games in the regular season before playoffs. every aspect of each week makes the NFL feel like a do-or-die league during the fall.

So what stands out the most in the immediate aftermath of Buffalo’s schedule reveal? Is it possible that a team with eight nationally televised games in 2025 is being overlooked? I have some thoughts about the schedule created for revamped Bills team that made the 2024 AFC Championship Game, and which rosters the current NFL MVP in quarterback Josh Allen.

The Bills will be home for the holidays in 2025

“Will they or won’t they?” One of the hottest topics about the Bills’ schedule this offseason was whether or not Buffalo would play as part of a featured holiday game. Thanksgiving, (technically) Black Friday, and Christmas were all holidays on the calendar this season where many expected Buffalo to play games. There are a total of seven games between the three holidays, yet the Bills aren’t one of the 14 featured teams.

To me, that’s the biggest surprise of the team’s 2025 schedule. Despite a featured holiday film exclusive to the Hallmark Channel, Buffalo won’t have to worry about how cold it is outside, nor how or when they’re getting home for any holiday this year.

For whatever reason, one of the NFL’s hottest teams — a perennial playoff franchise and Super Bowl contender featuring the reigning NFL MVP in Josh Allen — wasn’t included in this year’s holiday plans.

Quite honestly, I’m okay with it. I do understand the appeal of watching the Bills during a holiday, even if your fandom doesn’t allow you to focus on anything other than the game. However, for those of us who cover the team and the NFL in our professional lives, it’s a blessing having those days off.

Bills avoided 2025 NFL International Games

Many analysts and fans believed Buffalo was ripe for the international picking this coming season. They’ll play the road team to the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team set to serve as the home team for the first NFL game in Dublin, Ireland. Josh Allen’s jersey was the fourth-highest-selling among all NFL threads in 2024. There was every reason to expect a Bills-Steelers matchup. But, again, worried (or wishful) thinking was all for naught. That’s a major plus for Buffalo — which has one of the lowest mileage totals in the NFL this season.

There are plenty of reasons the Bills should want to play international games, chief among them being the exposure granted to one of the NFL’s smallest markets. So, too, is the case for the league having interest in Buffalo playing overseas — mostly thanks to the celebrity of Josh Allen.

For now, the international talk can be shelved for another 11 months or so, right next to the holiday chatter.

Bills again asked to share Monday Night Football spotlight

In 2025, Buffalo travels to face the Atlanta Falcons for a Week 6 MNF matchup that’s part of a double-header endeavor rolled out by ESPN in recent seasons. Buffalo’s October 13 primetime game won’t be the only NFL matchup on that evening — with a game between the Chicago Bears and Washington Commanders airing exclusively on ABC (which ESPN is part of).

As was the case for the Bills’ MNF double-header in 2024, you can expect the game to start around 7 p.m. EDT. That’s a tough pill to swallow for a fan base whose team has just one MNF appearance. For fans who live on the West Coast or almost anywhere else outside the Eastern Daylight Timezone, it’s fairly inconvenient. A 7 p.m. EDT start time equates to a 4 p.m. local start time out west — in other words, when most people are still working.

There are a total of 12 teams playing within the structure of ESPN’s MNF double-header programming. Six matchups between Weeks 4 and 7 (and a TBD Week 18), yet for Week 5 there’s only one game: Kansas City Chiefs at Jacksonville Jaguars.

Though the Bills are a small-market team, they’re a huge rating draw. Most of the 11 other teams are in major cities and being asked to share viewership:

Week 4:

Week 6:

Bills at Atlanta Falcons
Bears at Commanders

Week 7:

In Weeks 6 and 7, the league made sure to put one intraconference and one interconference matchup in primetime, instead of pitting two intraconference and two interconference games against each other.

Perhaps it’s much ado about nothing, but it sure feels like the Bills were given second billing again by ESPN.

Some additional hitters about the Bills’ 2025 schedule overall

The schedule is front-loaded with home games, and Weeks 2 through 7 sees the Bills facing teams that went a combined 35-67 in 2024, none of which made the playoffs (hat tip to Bills reporter Sal Capaccio). Yes, year to year teams are vastly different. That said, Buffalo could have a fantastic opportunity to get off to great start before what’s believed to be the toughest part of their schedule.

The downside to so many early home games is the team’s road schedule the last two thirds of the season, which see the Bills on the road in six out of 11 games to end the season following the Week 7 bye (and seven out of 12 games overall after Week 5). It’s going to be a mid/late season packed full of road challenges for Buffalo.

Speaking of that bye: Week 7 is early for it, certainly. To me, the worst part about the bye is that it comes between two road games against NFC South teams, so the Bills won’t get extra rest ahead of key conference or divisional matchups.

There is are a couple of huge benefits to Buffalo’s early bye, however. The first being that the Bills’ only MNF game precedes their bye, so they won’t have a short week to prepare for any team.

A potentially more significant benefit has to do with a couple of players new to the roster in 2025. The Bills signed a pair of free agents in defensive lineman Michael Hoecht and defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi — and both will miss the first six weeks of action while serving suspensions for failed PED tests.

With a bye in Week 7, it will allow Hoecht and Ogunjobi to get re-acclimated to practice and hopefully back up to the playing speed they’ll have developed during training camp and preseason action. It’s a silver lining for a pair of tarnished signings by general manager Brandon Beane.

It’s the final season in what will always be Rich Stadium to me. It’s poignant that Buffalo’s last game in their current home will be against the first team they played when it opened in 1973: The Jets. However, I don’t see that game as the most noteworthy of the home slate, and it’s not even the Baltimore Ravens — a game set to feature the last two NFL MVPs in Allen and quarterback Lamar Jackson during Week 1 of 2025.

Instead, I see Week 17 at home facing the defending Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles as the marquee home game of 2025. It’s almost certain that the Bills and Eagles will have plenty to play for in Week 17. The same can’t be said of the final week in the regular season, even if it’s an AFC East matchup. If all goes well, Philly and Buffalo should be firing on all cylinders just ahead of the playoffs. The Eagles may very prove to be a key litmus test for the Bills — one that may be beneficial given enough luck to meet again during the postseason.

Bills’ 2025 NFL regular-season schedule

Week 1 (home): Buffalo Bills vs. Baltimore Ravens (NBC) (Sunday Night Football)
(Sunday, September 7 — 8:20 p.m. EDT)
Week 2 (away): Bills at New York Jets (CBS)
(Thursday, September 14 — 1 p.m. EDT)
Week 3 (home): Bills vs. Miami Dolphins (Prime Video) (Thursday Night Football)
(September 18 — 8 p.m. EDT)
Week 4 (home): Bills vs. New Orleans Saints (Fox)
(Sunday, September 28 — 1 p.m. EDT)
Week 5 (home): Bills vs. New England Patriots (NBC) (Sunday Night Football)
(Sunday, October 5 — 8:20 p.m. EDT)
Week 6 (away): Bills at Atlanta Falcons (ESPN) (Monday Night Football)
(Monday, October 13 — 8:15 p.m. EDT)
Week 7 (BYE WEEK) (October 19)
Week 8 (away): Bills at Carolina Panthers (CBS)
(Sunday, October 26 — 1 p.m. EDT)
Week 9 (home): Bills vs. Kansas City Chiefs (CBS)
(Sunday, November 2 — 4:25 p.m. EST)
Week 10 (away): Bills at Miami Dolphins (CBS)
(Sunday, November 9 — 1 p.m. EST)
Week 11 (home): Bills vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Fox)
(Sunday, November 16 — 1 p.m. EST)
Week 12 (away): Bills at Houston Texans (Prime Video) (Thursday Night Football)
(November 20 — 8:15 p.m. EST)
Week 13 (away): Bills at Pittsburgh Steelers (CBS)
(Sunday, November 30 — 4:25 p.m. EST)
Week 14 (home): Bills vs. Cincinnati Bengals (CBS)
(Sunday, December 7 — 4:25 p.m. EST)
Week 15 (away): Bills at New England Patriots CBS)
(Sunday, December 14 — 1 p.m. EST)
Week 16 (away): Bills at Cleveland Browns (CBS)
(Sunday, December 21 — 1 p.m. EST)
Week 17 (home): Bills vs. Philadelphia Eagles (CBS)
(Sunday, December 28 — 4:25 p.m. EST)
Week 18 (home): Bills vs. New York Jets
(January 4 — time TBD — Flex scheduling)