The 2025 NFL regular season schedule has officially been released in full for the league’s 17-game, 18-week regular season.
Get an early sports betting edge with our analysis across strength of schedule, rest disparity, short weeks, road games on short rest, prep & rest ranking, team schedule notes, and much more.
Top 10 Things to Know About the 2025 NFL Schedule:
1. Strength of schedule matters!
By leveraging projected win totals and current season data, Warren Sharp’s strength of schedule model provides a more accurate and insightful tool for assessing team schedules and forecasting performance.
Historical data confirms these results. Year in and year out:
- Teams that are predicted to have the easiest schedule are far more likely to finish with winning records.
- Teams that are predicted to have the hardest schedules are far more likely to finish with losing records.
- The vast majority of teams forecast to have winning records and predicted to have easier than average schedules finish the season with winning records: 11 of 14 such teams in the last two years had winning records.
- The vast majority of teams forecast to have losing records and predicted to have harder than average schedules finish the season with losing records: 12 of 15 such teams in the last two years had losing records.
2. The 10 easiest schedules, the 10 hardest schedules, and every team in between are detailed on our updated NFL Strength of Schedule breakdown.
It's VITAL to calculate these schedule strengths properly AND it's vital to use updated data.
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3. Rest Disparity matters:
Over the last decade, teams with a three to six day rest edge and not off a full bye have covered 53.6% of games with a 2.4% ROI in 308 games played.
From Week 6 onward, that edge increases to a cover rate of 54.9% with 4.7% ROI. These rest edges matter and are extremely useful to identify.
In the last 10 years, since 2014, teams playing short week (less than 6 days rest) road games have won 42.9% of games and covered just 48.3% (-7.8% ROI).
Meanwhile, when those same road teams play with extra rest (over 6 days) instead of short rest, they have won 47.9% of games and have covered a whopping 54.7% (+4.4% ROI).
Rest is a real factor, and it makes sense.
4. Which teams were helped and hurt the most by rest disparity?
The teams with the biggest edge in net rest advantage:
- Detroit Lions
- Miami Dolphins
- Los Angeles Rams
- San Francisco 49ers
- Seattle Seahawks
The teams with the biggest disadvantage:
- Las Vegas Raiders
- New Orleans Saints
- Washington Commanders
- Buffalo Bills
- Cleveland Browns
5. The full rest disparity rankings for the 2025 NFL season:
6. There is a big difference between strength of schedule and difficulty of scheduled timing of games.
Strength of schedule is calculated by WHO you play. Difficulty of scheduled timing is calculated by WHEN you play your opponents. And the NFL has complete control over it.
There are two ways to measure edges from the timing of games:
- The first is the net rest edges which we previously discussed.
- The second is looking at Prep & Rest Rankings, which we calculate using the following factors: opponent days to prepare (over or under a week), games with more rest than opponent, games with less rest than opponent, short week road games, games off road SNF or MNF and negated by weeks.
The teams with the best edges in Prep & Rest Rankings:
- Seattle Seahawks
- Detroit Lions
- Los Agneles Rams
- Arizona Cardinals
- San Francisco 49ers
The teams with the worst edges:
- Las Vegas Raiders
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- Carolina Panthers
- Chicago Bears
- Tennessee Titans
7. The full prep and rest rankings for the 2025 NFL season:
8. How the 2025 NFL Schedule Hurts the Washington Commanders
Washington faces an NFL high three teams off a bye:
Week 6: Chicago Bears, off their Week 5 bye
Week 9: Seattle Seahawks, off their Week 8 bye
Week 15: New York Giants, off their Week 14 bye
Back before the 2011 CBA, this scheduling issue would have mattered more.
The 2011 CBA introduced mandatory days off for teams on bye weeks, allowing players to fall out of their routines and become distracted.
Data has clearly shown a dropoff in production post-bye of late.
Washington also plays two short week road games (Week 2 in Green Bay, Week 7 in Dallas).
Overall, from a strength of opponent perspective, Washington is middle of the pack (#19).
And most of their tough games are on the road.
9. How the 2025 NFL Schedule Helps the Detroit Lions
The Lions made history when the NFL gave them the first schedule to ever feature eight games with a rest advantage.
No team in NFL history has played more than six games with a rest advantage in a season.
Think about it from this perspective: nearly HALF of the Lions' 2025 games have them playing at a rest advantage.
Meanwhile, three teams play just one game all season with a rest advantage.
Let’s look at the Lions' rest edges:
Week 2: Lions play the Bears, who are off a Week 1 MNF game (+1 Lions)
Week 5: Lions play the Bengals, who are off a Week 4 MNF game (+1 Lions)
Week 6: Lions play the Chiefs, who are off a Week 5 MNF game (+1 Lions)
Week 9: Lions, off a bye week, play the Vikings, who are not off a bye week (+3 Lions)
Week 11: Lions play the Eagles, who are off a Week 10 MNF game (+1 Lions)
Week 15: Lions, off a mini-bye, play the LA Rams, who are not off a mini-bye (+3 Lions)
Week 16: Lions play the Steelers, who are off a Week 15 MNF game (+1 Lions)
Week 18: Lions, off a mini-bye, play the Bears, who are not off a mini-bye (+3 Lions)
The Lions are the first team in NFL history to play five opponents off a Monday Night Football game who then must play on a short week with one less day of rest.
10. The NFL Schedule Grid is now live, and you need to save or print your copy to view all the edges as quickly as possible:
More NFL Betting content from Sharp Football:
- 2025 MVP Odds
- 2025 Super Bowl Odds
- 2025 Defensive Player of the Year Odds
- 2025 Offensive Rookie of the Year Odds
- 2025 Defensive Rookie of the Year Odds
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