Patriots 2025 schedule officially released

The New England Patriots' 2025 schedule is officially out.

Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel, and a revamped Pats roster will kick off the 2025 regular season against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 1 p.m. ET. Based on 2024, the Patriots enter 2025 with the NFL's third-easiest schedule overall, giving Vrabel a great chance to vastly improve upon two straight 4-13 campaigns.

The Pats have three primetime games on their schedule, an increase from just one "Thursday Night Football" game last season. They'll face the Buffalo Bills on the road on Sunday night in Week 5, take on the New York Jets at home on Thursday night in Week 11, and host the New York Giants on Monday Night Football in Week 13. This indicates increased confidence from the league that they will field a much more competitive product on the field in 2025.

As is tradition, the Patriots close out the 2025 regular season with two straight division games. They'll play the Jets at MetLife Stadium in Week 17, followed by the Dolphins at Gillette Stadium in Week 18. Their bye week will fall in Week 14, then they have a tough slate coming out of it, with a home game against the Bills followed by a road matchup with the Baltimore Ravens.

Read below for the complete week-by-week Patriots 2025 schedule, with initial thoughts on each game.

Note: All games Sunday unless otherwise noted, all times p.m. Eastern.

After starting two of the last three seasons on the road, the Patriots 2025 schedule has them opening at home. This will be the first time the Patriots open a season against the Raiders since 2005 and just the fourth time the teams have met in Week 1 all-time (the Patriots are 3-0 in the previous meetings).

Could this game line up with Tom Brady’s next return to Gillette Stadium? The Patriots and Raiders haven’t played since Brady became a minority owner in Vegas. It’s also a revenge game for offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who was the Raiders’ head coach until midway through the 2023 season. Multiple of McDaniels’ former Raiders players signed with the Patriots this offseason. 

It’ll also be the Patriots’ chance to play one of the top draft picks from this past year. The Raiders took running back Ashton Jeanty sixth overall, two picks after the Patriots. 

The Patriots will get their trip to Miami out of the way early this year. It may be hot in South Florida in September, but the team won’t be too far removed from the dog days of training camp. This game being this early also means the Patriots will likely get a healthier version of a Miami team that has dealt with significant injuries the last few years.

This series has been pretty one-sided over the last decade. The Patriots have won three in a row and eight of their last nine head-to-head against Pittsburgh. Given the uncertainty around this year’s Steelers team there’s a shot that could continue. This game will also have the Patriots facing one of the most-talked about players from their offseason that they didn’t end up landing - wide receiver D.K. Metcalf.

At first glance, the Patriots’ quarterback schedule as a whole seems easier than last year. Still this could sneakily be one of the tougher tests for their defense. 2023 first-overall pick Bryce Young started to come on strong in the second half of next year, and if he takes another step forward in 2025 the Patriots’ defense could have its hands full.

Last time the Patriots and Bills met was that fateful Week 18 game to close out the 2024 season. Buffalo pulled its starters and played an overly conservative game, allowing the Patriots to pick up the win and with it drop out of the first overall pick. Expect a much more competitive game this time around, with the matchup in the national spotlight on Sunday Night Football.

With an easier start to the schedule, this could represent the first real test for Mike Vrabel’s Patriots team. If they get out to a hot start, this game will be a true measuring stick.

In the aftermath of Derek Carr’s retirement the Saints are looking like a real tank contender in 2025. Beyond the uncertainty at quarterback the team lacks depth among its playmakers on offense, and is thin in the secondary on defense.

The Patriots have lost their last two games against the Saints, including being on the wrong side of a 34-0 blowout at Gillette Stadium in 2023. They did win their last game in the Superdome, but that was all the way back in 2017.

Mike Vrabel’s return to Tennessee just two years after being fired by the Titans makes this one of the most nationally-notable games on the Patriots’ schedule. As Vrabel returns to Nissan Stadium he’ll have to have his team ready to take on the No. 1 overall pick in the draft in quarterback Cam Ward, as the Titans look to begin their post-Vrabel rebuild.

This was also the site of one of the high-points for Drake Maye last season. His last-second touchdown to force overtime against the Titans was one of his first highlights for the Patriots.

What might be the great tank of 2025 makes its way to Gillette Stadium in October. The Browns’ roster contains significantly more questions than answers at a number of key positions. We’ll see what Mike Vrabel has in store for his most recent employer. The rookie matchup between Will Campbell and Mason Graham should be a fun storyline too.

This will be the third meeting between the Patriots and Falcons since 28-3. The Patriots have won seven games in a row against the Falcons, with Atlanta’s last head-to-head win coming in 1998. In this matchup, two of the top quarterbacks from the 2024 draft class will be in line to face off as Michael Penix leads the Dirty Birds into Foxborough to take on Drake Maye.

It’s back-to-back NFC South games for the Patriots to open November. Last time these teams met it was one of the biggest games on the NFL calendar, marking Tom Brady’s first return to Gillette Stadium.

This time the Buccaneers will be at home, led by Baker Mayfield. Last year the Bucs ranked fourth in the NFL in scoring, and return many of the pieces from that team. Combine that with being on the road in Florida, and this will be one of the tougher tests for Mike Vrabel’s defense on the Patriots 2025 schedule.

The Patriots 2025 schedule doesn’t have them meeting the Jets for the first time until mid-November. Last year a Thursday night game against the Jets was the first major sign of trouble as the Pats got blown out in the Meadowlands in Week 3. This time it’s the Jets coming to Foxborough for the mid-week matchup, and the Patriots’ identity should be much more solidified by this point.

The Bengals’ will be looking for revenge for Week 1 last year, when the Patriots went into Paycor Stadium and came away with an upset win that ended up being their high point of the season, and later ended up keeping the Bengals out of the playoffs.

It was a banged-up Bengals team in Week 1 last year, for a group that has historically started slow under Zac Taylor. This is much later in the year, so the Patriots should get a better shot from Cincinnati this time around. That will likely include Tee Higgins, who was a rumored Patriots target this offseason before he re-signed with the Bengals.

It’s rivalry renewed between the Patriots and Giants, for the first time since 2023 and it comes in the national spotlight on Monday Night Football. That last meeting was Mac Jones’ final start in New England, and ended with Chad Ryland missing a would-be game-tying 35-yard field goal in the final seconds, in a 10-7 loss.

That missed field goal ended up being the difference between the Patriots landing the third overall pick over the Giants (and others) in the 2024 draft, and Drake Maye heading to New England instead of New York. However Malik Nabers hasn’t exactly been a bad pick for New York, but the question is who will be throwing him the ball in this one?

This will be the first Monday Night Football game played at Gillette Stadium in three years. The last time the Patriots hosted MNF was in October of 2022 against the Bears, in the game that kicked off ‘Zappe Fever.’ The Patriots haven’t played any Monday Night Football games home or road the last two years (they were scheduled for one in 2023 but later flexed out of it).

For the second year in a row the Patriots have a Week 14 bye week - among the latest in the NFL. It’s less consequential this year without the team trying to set up a quarterback change, but the first few months of the season will still be that much more of a grind. It doesn’t help that their mini-bye (coming off of Thursday Night Football) also doesn’t come until the second half of the year in Week 11.

In Week 15 the Bills make their return trip to Foxborough, as the 2025 Patriots schedule wraps up with three divisional games over the final four weeks. It’s likely Buffalo will have plenty of playoff stakes on the line in this one - will the Patriots be facing the same?

This will be the Patriots’ first trip to Baltimore since 2019 - a Sunday night game that ended up being their first loss of that season and kicked off a second-half slide. No players currently on the Patriots’ roster played for the team in that game.

In the first of back-to-back divisional games to wrap up the season the Patriots make the trip down to New Jersey for a rematch with the Jets.

Instead of the Patriots heading down to play in the South Florida heat late in the year - as has been the case in recent seasons - it’ll be Miami coming up to play in the New England cold to close out the Patriots 2025 schedule. As much as the Patriots have struggled with the heat in Miami, this Dolphins team as a whole has not been good in the cold under Mike McDaniel - which could be helpful if the Patriots need to make a late playoff push.

This game, as is the case with all Week 18 games, will be scheduled in the week leading up to it based on playoff scenarios.