Should Divisional Rivals Play in Week One?
With the 2025 NFL season schedule set to come out this week, fans are buzzing about when and where their favorite teams will play their most hated rivals. For some members of the NFC East, a greater piece of the puzzle was revealed with the news that the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles will kick off the new season by hosting the Dallas Cowboys on September 4th. The Eagles and Cowboys have one of the single most storied and bitter rivalries in the history of football, a shared beef that will be confronted full force in front of the entire football-watching world as the very first game of the season. The question is, should that be the very first game of the season? Should any divisional game happen in Week One at all?
The pros of hosting such a heated divisional game to kick off the season are obvious. The context of a division rivalry, especially one as fierce as the rivalry between Dallas and Philly, will surely bring out an intensity in both rosters, that should make for an extra exciting game for all fans watching. As an added bonus for the league, the NFC East is home to some of the largest media markets in the nation, with NFC East teams consistently drawing huge ratings to their games, especially when they play each other. It all seems like a win-win-win scenario; the teams have immediate stakes to play for, the fans get to watch an intense and meaningful game, and the league gets super, massive ratings for their very first regular season matchup. If that’s the case, why would there be any hesitancy?
The thing that is so great about divisional games is also the very thing that should give a little pause in playing them so early in the season: they mean something. Yes, of course, every game played during the regular season means something, but divisional games mean even more. Not only do teams want to dominate their biggest rivals for bragging rights, but they are also key matchups in the race for division championships and, therefore, guaranteed spots in the postseason. Stakes like these are why fans take these games so seriously, which explains the controversy around the rumor that the LA Chargers will play a “home” game against the Kansas City Chiefs in Brazil, losing true home-field advantage against their most powerful rival.
From a team perspective, it can be daunting to have to play such a high-stakes game first thing in the season, when teams have their first real test of how they play as a unit. Yes, the preseason exists, but those games exist mainly for the sake of testing roster depth, not to see how their starters will operate when crunch time happens. While every game, including the very first one, matters during the regular season, I am sure that teams would want to be as prepared as possible for the games that matter even more. It is uncomfortable to have so much hanging in the balance while playing real minutes for the first time all year, when many kinks in a team’s game haven’t even been identified, let alone fine-tuned.
Meanwhile, for the officials of the league, scheduling these divisional matchups in Week One seems a bit like overkill. The very first game of the season will draw huge ratings no matter what, and the fans of each franchise will undoubtedly tune in extensively to see how their team looks in a new year. As the season marches on, some teams will inevitably have a bad year, often causing diminishing viewership numbers as a team sinks deeper and deeper into losing. Having rivalry games later in the season ensures that everyone, even a team with a bad record, has something important to play for, and fans have something meaningful to watch.
Looking at the data of the recent past, the Week One division game may be an exception, rather than a rule. The number of divisional games in Week One has decreased steadily over the last several years, with last year only having three. It is entirely possible that the Cowboys vs. Eagles game and the rumored Chiefs vs. Chargers in Brazil matchup will be among very sparse company in terms of Week One divisional games. Regardless of where these games end up happening during the season, they will remain just as important and hyped as they always have been.
