By CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Sports Columnist
For years, as the National Football League schedule expanded and its international slate proliferated, I’d follow the NFL’s schedule release with the lede to my column via a quote from Marv Levy during Buffalo’s Super Bowl years.
Levy, a man from a different era, when I asked him about the league schedule catering to the most successful teams — of which his Bills were one — earning their disproportionate share of national telecasts, the eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer maintained, “Given their driuthers, NFL coaches would prefer to play every game at 1 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon because you get used to the routine. They’re reluctant to disrupt it. It’s an honor to be picked for those prime-time games, but there is a downside.”
SO BUFFALO’S 2025 slate was released last night along with the rest of the league and the results are interesting.
The Bills had the NFL’s fifth-best record (13-4) last season and have the obligatory five prime-time games, but were blanked in the so-called marquee contests.
They weren’t scheduled on the “Black Friday” telecast, the Christmas Eve game or one of the three the next day and in none of the seven international matchups in (London (3), Brazil, Ireland, Germany and Spain.
All five of Buffalo’s prime-time games are in the USA: Baltimore (8:20 p.m. Sun, Sept. 7, NBC), Miami (8:15 p.m. Thurs, Sept. 18, Prime), at New England (8:20 p.m.Thurs. Oct. 5, NBC), at Atlanta (7:15 p.m. Monday, Oct. 13, ESPN) and at Houston (8:15 p.m. Thurs. Nov. 20, Prime).
Less than half the Bills slate, seven games, is a 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon start: at the Jets (Sept. 14, CBS), New Orleans (Oct 5, CBS), at Carolina (Oct. 26, Fox), at Miami (Nov. 9, CBS), Tampa Bay (Nov. 16, CBS), at New England (Dec. 14, CBS) and at Cleveland (Dec. 21, CBS).
UNLIKE last season when the Bills were slated for three straight road games early in the schedule — losing at Baltimore and Houston and besting the Jets at the Meadowlands — there’s no such stretch this year. Instead they get three straight home games: Miami (Sept. 18), New Orleans (Sept. 28) and New England (Oct.5). They face three back-to-back road games Atlanta and Carolina (Oct. 13, 26) interrupted by the bye week, Houston and Pittsburgh separated by 10 days (Nov. 20, 30), and New England and Cleveland (Dec.. 14, 21).
The Bills will play five games against teams with new coaches, two of them twice: New England with Mike Vrabel and the Jets with Aaron Glenn, plus Kellen Moore at New Orleans.
For the record, though playing both the Eagles and Chiefs in Orchard Park, as well as the Ravens and Bengals, Buffalo’s schedule is the 23rd easiest in the league (.467 pct based on 2024 records).
The easiest slate belongs to the 49ers at .415 while the toughest goes to the Giants (.574).
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
