The Buffalo Bills won’t be part of Thanksgiving or Christmas activities.
The Bills somehow dodged holiday and international games on their 2025 schedule. Buffalo will, however, have at least five primetime games for the third consecutive season, starting with the season opener.
The Baltimore Ravens will pay the Bills a visit in Week 1 for an NBC Sunday Night Football game, a rematch of last year’s AFC divisional round game won by Buffalo, 27-25. As Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson meet for the third time in two seasons, it marks the fourth time the previous two MVPs go head-to-head in Week 1.
Jackson and Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes opened the season last year. Green Bay’s Brett Favre and Detroit’s Barry Sanders met in 1998 and Pittsburgh’s Terry Bradshaw and Houston’s Earl Campbell met in 1980.
Buffalo will also host a Week 3 primetime game for the second consecutive season and will face the Miami Dolphins on Thursday Night Football for the second year in a row. The Bills and Dolphins played Thursday night in Week 2 last year.
The Bills will host the Patriots Sunday Night Football in Week 5 and travel to Atlanta for a Monday Night Football game the following week. Buffalo travels to Houston for another Thursday Night Football game in Week 12, marking the second time in franchise history — it played on Thursday three times in 2022 — the team has multiple Thursday games in a season.
Barring any changes, the Bills will have gotten 30 primetime games since 2020, including a 2022 game in Cincinnati that was canceled, the 2023 season finale against Miami that was flex and not counting two games moved to primetime due to COVID-19 in 2020. The Bills had 26 total in the previous 20 seasons.
There are also a franchise-high four 4:25 p.m. games, starting with Buffalo’s annual game with the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 9 at Highmark Stadium, starting a potentially difficult back half of the season. The Bills’ first six opponents had a .395 winning percentage last year, while the final 11 had a .518 winning percentage.
Those final 11 games feature both Super Bowl participants, two more division winners and five total playoff teams. Although the Bills have played a primetime game against an AFC East foe every year since 2014, the NFL also clearly believes the Patriots will be improved this season.
The NFL also stopped backloading the schedule with divisional games. Although the Bills continue a stretch that dates back to 2010 in which they finish the season with an AFC East opponent, it’s the first time since 2015 divisional opponents don’t make up at least two of their final three games.
Highmark Stadium’s final regular season game will be the season finale against the New York Jets, although the NFL doesn’t announce time or date until the week of the game. The first regular season game at Highmark also came against the Jets, a 9-7 Bills win on Sept. 30, 1973.