There is no more valuable entertainment content in the United States right now than NFL game inventory. But you might be surprised to learn that NFL regular-season viewership dropped 2.2 percent last season, with Fox, CBS and ESPN all seeing declines.

The league averaged 17.5 million viewers per game for the 2024-25 season, down from 17.9 million viewers in the 2023-24 season. One reason for the downturn was a lack of competitive games across the league late in the year.

Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s EVP for media distribution, said in an interview earlier this month said the league feels good about the balance for the 2025 regular season between front-loading the schedule and setting up big games (at least on paper) late in the year.

When the new schedule came out, The Athletic’s NFL team reporters each selected a must-watch game for each team, and Mike Jones had his list. We also took you behind the scenes with network executives who manage the schedule-making process with the league.

Below, I wanted to give you insight from a media-centric perspective on which games should push the NFL conversation most in 2025, ranked in order of potential impact:

Week 13: Kansas Chiefs at Dallas Cowboys
(CBS, Paramount+, 4:30 p.m. ET)
As I previously wrote, the NFL made a strategic decision to schedule the Chiefs versus the Cowboys in Dallas on Thanksgiving Day. The rationale, based on talking to numerous people at different networks, is that the NFL thinks the game can set a record for the most-viewed NFL regular-season game in history. (The record was set on Thanksgiving Day in 2022 when 42.1 million viewers watched the Cowboys beat the New York Giants on Fox.)

“We are not sure where the ceiling is here because it is such a unique day, building around family, food and football,” Schroeder said. It is not inconceivable for this game to come close to 50 million viewers if everything comes together.

Week 9: Chiefs at Buffalo Bills
(CBS, Paramount+, 4:25 p.m. ET )
CBS has ridden the Chiefs and Bills to viewership highs over the past couple of years, and this Week 9 matchup in Buffalo is on the short list for the most-watched regular-season game outside of the Thanksgiving trio. Last year’s AFC Championship Game between the Bills and Chiefs averaged nearly 58 million viewers.

This is Fox’s first big game of the season and a rematch of the 2023 Super Bowl. The CBS competition in the window features markets outside the top 10 (Denver Broncos-Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers-Arizona Cardinals), so this will be one of the most-watched games of the regular season.

Week 1: Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles
(NBC, Peacock, 8:20 p.m. ET)
The NFL has front-loaded its schedule the last two seasons to get off to a big viewership start, and this potentially outdraws last year’s opener if it’s close. The number to beat? Last year’s 27-20 victory by the Chiefs over the Ravens averaged 28.9 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. It’s a great opening game to set up conversations about the season.

Week 1: Baltimore Ravens at Bills
(NBC, Peacock, 8:20 p.m. ET)
The best matchup of Week 1 comes on Sunday night — a rematch of the AFC divisional round playoffs and the last two NFL MVPs. The teams drew an audience of 42.2 million on CBS for a 6:30 p.m. ET kickoff last January.

Week 14: Cincinnati Bengals at Bills
(Fox, Fox One, 4:25 p.m. ET)
When I spoke to Mike Mulvihill, the head of insights and analytics for Fox Sports and the person who runs point for his network on the NFL schedule, last month, he specifically pointed to this game as an example of Fox asking the NFL for more AFC inventory.

“We talked a lot with the league about the idea that ‘cross-flex,’ which is the policy by which NFC games can go to CBS and AFC games can go to Fox, needed to be a little bit more balanced,” Mulvihill said. “That cross-flex mechanism was created to help balance the (media) packages, and in the years since then, the AFC has become significantly better than it was when that protocol was agreed upon.”

If the Bengals return to playoff contention, which seems like a decent bet, Fox is looking at a 30 million viewership game, which would track as one of the most for the regular season.

Week 1: Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil
(YouTube, 8:00 p.m. ET)
I’d expect this to draw a lot of social media conversation given it’s the first NFL game to be exclusively streamed live and for free on YouTube, along with YouTube TV. (The game will also be available on free, over-the-air broadcast television in the local markets of the teams.)

From a business perspective, this feels like a test run for Google’s YouTube to be a serious player for a large package of exclusive games when the NFL no doubt opts out of its current media deals in 2029. “We are trying to be smart and go onto platforms that are already widely scaled and have a lot of NFL fans already,” said Schroeder.

Week 14: Cowboys at Detroit Lions
(Amazon Prime Video, 8:15 p.m. ET)
Amazon Prime’s most-watched regular-season game came last year when 17.29 million viewers watched Detroit’s comeback victory over the Green Bay Packers. If the Cowboys don’t crash out again and the Lions are what people anticipate this season, this game should top that.

Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills make Richard Deitsch’s list of teams playing in the most conversation-driving games of the upcoming season. (Al Bello / Getty Images)

Week 17: Eagles at Bills
(Fox, Fox One, 4:25 p.m. ET)
Fox gets another significant NFC versus AFC game featuring the Eagles. This game drew 30.9 million viewers on CBS in 2023.

Week 4: Ravens at Chiefs
(CBS, Paramount+, 4:25 p.m. ET)
This is the first week CBS gets the Chiefs, and it gets them in the late-afternoon Sunday window. CBS also has the Chicago Bears-Las Vegas Raiders in the late-afternoon window, which will bring down the numbers slightly, given the loss of the Chicago market.

Week 8: Washington Commanders at Chiefs
(ABC/ESPN, 8:15 p.m. ET)
Take one part Jayden Daniels, one part Patrick Mahomes and add ESPN’s over-the-top marketing of this game for a week. That’s a formula for a big conversation week. The Commanders are in 10 national windows this year, and the league needs them to do well.

Week 6: Lions at Chiefs
(NBC, Peacock, 8:20 p.m. ET)
NBC has the Chiefs three times and the Lions twice, and this is early enough where neither team is in jeopardy of being out of it, even with a significant injury.

Week 3: Lions at Ravens
(ESPN/ABC, 8:15 p.m. ET)
Disney’s first opportunity to put up a big viewership number. The Lions were part of 2024’s most-watched game on “Monday Night Football” (22.2 million viewers for Lions-San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 30).

Week 13: Packers at Lions
(Fox, 1:00 p.m. ET)
The opener of the Thanksgiving Day games has a slightly later kickoff time, which gives the NFL even more runway for added viewers. Last year’s early game on CBS between the Bears and Lions averaged 37.5 million viewers, the most-watched early Thanksgiving Day game on record. An interesting note: The Bears-Lions last year averaged 40 million viewers from 2:30 p.m. ET until the game’s conclusion.

Week 17: Bears at Niners
(NBC, Peacock, 8:20 p.m. ET)
If you work under the premise that both teams are in the hunt for the postseason this year, this Week 17 game should have massive NFC implications.

Week 13: Bengals at Ravens
(NBC, Peacock, 8:20 p.m. ET)
NBC’s best Thanksgiving NFL viewership came in 2015 for the Bears-Packers, which drew 27.8 million viewers. This could top it.

Week 13: Bears at Eagles
(Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 p.m. ET)
Black Friday is a significant date for Amazon Prime Video given the shopping connection, and Amazon Prime Video will also air the NBA this upcoming season. So, look for the streamer to air around 12 straight live hours of sports programming between the NFL and NBA. It’s going to be a day when sports fans talk about Amazon Prime as it relates to sports.

Week 6: Bills at Atlanta Falcons
(ESPN, 7:15 p.m. ET)
Bears at Commanders
(ABC, 8:15 p.m. ET)
A sneaky-good quasi-doubleheader, and it will be fascinating to see the viewership data afterward given both games have interest nationally.

Week 17: Cowboys at Commanders
(Netflix, 1:00 p.m. ET)
The NFL took care of Netflix by assigning it the Cowboys and Cardinals to open Christmas Day. Last year’s Ravens-Houston Texans game on Christmas averaged 24.3 million viewers, and the Chiefs-Pittsburgh Steelers game drew 24.1 million viewers. (Netflix said those numbers increased to 30 million and 31.3 million when the global audience was added.) This game looks like a better matchup than it had last year.

Week 10: Eagles at Packers
(ESPN, ABC, 8:15 p.m. ET)
Week 11: Lions at Eagles
(NBC, Peacock, 8:20 p.m. ET)
Week 12: Eagles at Cowboys
(Fox, Fox One, 4:25 p.m. ET)
I highlight this stretch because look how the NFL has set up the Eagles for a month of high-profile games in significant television windows — and Week 13 is the Black Friday game on Amazon mentioned above. It’s a brutally competitive set of games for Philadelphia, but the big winner, as always, will be the NFL because all these games will rate.

(Top photo of Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts: Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images)