Get able to see a bit of extra of the Washington Commanders, rather less of the New York Jets, and nary a touch of Kansas Metropolis — no less than in terms of seeing the Chiefs in particular person at SoFi Stadium.

The NFL unveiled its 2025 schedule Wednesday night, the most recent installment in an occasion that has gone from mundane to monumental.

The league has turned its schedule launch into one thing of a nationwide sports activities vacation, lifting the curtain on the months-long technique of discovering the optimum configuration of 272 video games performed over 18 weeks and broadcast or streamed by 11 completely different media companions.

It’s just about unattainable to please each franchise and honor each request, however with the assistance of about 5,000 computer systems around the globe crunching numbers 24/7, the NFL’s scheduling group sifts by way of lots of of trillions of potential combos earlier than selecting the winner.

Among the many highlights of this 12 months’s schedule:

1. We knew the Chargers have been opening the season in Sao Paulo, however we didn’t know the opponent (till Travis Kelce let it slip this week on his podcast). Sure, it’s the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs making the Week 1 journey to South America. Meaning the Chiefs gained’t be coming to Los Angeles this season until it’s within the playoffs. The Chargers had an opportunity to “protect” two opponents and make them ineligible for that worldwide sport, however they selected to not veto a matchup with Kansas Metropolis.

2. The league’s rationale is it needs to offer YouTubeTV a terrific sport for that Friday showcase, and that AFC West showdown fills the invoice. True, the Chiefs gained’t be coming to SoFi Stadium, however they play there each different 12 months. Had the NFL made Washington or Minnesota the guests in that one, these groups won’t be again in L.A. for an additional seven or eight years.

3. The NFL doesn’t need to go large within the Kickoff Opener to get huge TV numbers, however the league will achieve this with this 12 months’s marquee matchup: Dallas at Philadelphia. The league didn’t like the way it needed to flex out of that sport final season.

4. In truth, the opening week options huge divisional bookends. It begins with Cowboys-Eagles and ends on Monday evening with Chicago at Minnesota, with the Vikings presumably taking the wrapper off quarterback J.J. McCarthy, final seen successful a nationwide championship for Michigan.

5. Brief weeks don’t appear to trouble the Rams, and they’re going to get two of them this season with a pair of Thursday evening video games — one at residence (versus San Francisco in Week 5) and one on the street (at Seattle in Week 16).

Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford listens to the nationwide anthem along with his teammates earlier than a sport in October.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Instances)

6. The Rams requested an East Coast sport instantly earlier than enjoying Jacksonville in London in Week 7. The NFL obliged, placing the Rams in Baltimore the week earlier than so the group might have a shorter journey abroad and already be on Jap time.

7. The Chargers have that lengthy flight to and from Brazil, however they’ll’t play at SoFi in Week 2 as a result of the stadium is enjoying host to a Chris Brown live performance. So the NFL gave them a brief street journey to Las Vegas and made it a Monday evening sport.

8. There gained’t be a Monday evening doubleheader in Week 1, as in years previous, however there can be two this season, in Weeks 2 and seven.

9. The Commanders are getting a giant bump after their playoff run final season, and that features 5 prime-time appearances for quarterback Jayden Daniels and his teammates, plus a number of nationwide Sunday home windows.

10. The New York Jets, minus Aaron Rodgers, and New England Patriots gained’t get as many prime-time appearances as they as soon as did.

11. There’s a altering of the guard this 12 months, with longtime NFL scheduling czar Howard Katz retiring. He’s a legendary determine in league circles who for years just about assembled the schedule in his head, simply as predecessor Val Pinchbeck did for many years. That’s to not say Katz didn’t use an enormous community of computer systems to do the job — he completely did — however he additionally relied closely on his intestine and broadcast instincts.

12. The league has leaned more and more into analytics and knowledge science in constructing the schedule with a group led by Michael North, vice chairman of broadcast planning. This 12 months, North added Max St. John, a numbers whiz from the College of Virginia to the group, which additionally consists of Hans Schroeder, Daybreak Aponte, Onnie Bose, Blake Jones, Lucy Popko, Josh Helmrich and Matthew Winston.

13. St. John works as supervisor of broadcast analytics, and is targeted largely on projecting how reconfigured groups will play this season, versus zeroing in on what they did final season. He stated he was shocked by the fluidity of the schedule-building course of: “People think that most things are locked in pretty early on, maybe a couple weeks before the schedule is done. But that’s really not the case. You make one small move here and it reshuffles the entire jigsaw puzzle. Things really don’t get locked in until pretty late which is something that I didn’t expect.”