The NFL schedule is set to drop on Wednesday night, but there was one little bit of information that the league has already announced.
When it comes to traveling overseas, it looks like the New England Patriots won’t be among the clubs playing across the pond this season.
The NFL announced the match-ups and locations for their seven games slated for 2025, with a trip to San Paulo, Brazil by the Chargers and a team to be announced tomorrow on tap first on September 5th for the first one.
From there, it will be the Vikings and Steelers on September 28th in Dublin, followed by an interesting wrinkle as the Vikings play another overseas match-up in London the following week against the Browns on October 5th.
After that, it’s Denver and the New York Jets in London on October 12th, followed by the Rams and Jaguars the next week on October 19th to finish off the third and final game in London.
Then, it’s Atlanta against the Colts on November 9th in Berlin, followed by the Commanders and Dolphins in Madrid on November 16th.
That’s good news for a team that’s in transition this season, as Mike Vrabel will at least have one additional obstacle off the table. With a young team, it minimizes distractions and removes temptation for players to potentially do something they shouldn’t.
The Patriots did have issues during the last trip overseas. NBC Sports Boston’s Phil Perry reported that after being inactive for the game, it ended up because rookie wideout Javon Baker missed curfew.
“It’s my understanding that Javon Baker did miss curfew on Saturday night in London,” said Perry later on following that contest. “He was late getting back to the team hotel ahead of their game vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was inactive for that game.”
Prior to that, it was J.C. Jackson and Jack Jones who both had an incident the previous week against the Commanders ahead of the club’s other game in Germany in 2023. That led to Jackson staying behind, while Jones traveled with the team but was benched to start the game. Jones was ultimately released after the team returned to New England, with former coach Bill Belichick telling reporters, “I felt like it was time to move on,” following the move.
According to Boston Sports Journal’s Mike Giardi, Jones’ “behavior/engagement” in Germany wasn’t to the level the team had hoped for following his previous benching against the Commanders, which led to the decision.
For now, it at least clears a little cleaner path as Vrabel continues instilling a new culture for a team that’s so young. So far, the early returns have been positive, and the mood seems to be one where the players appear to be enjoying the process here early on.
The team just finished off their rookie minicamp over the weekend, with OTAs now slated to begin on May 19th.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
When you look at the pats opponents this year, it’s truly an easy looking schedule. There’s many games with teams with shaky QB situations (SAINTS, NYG, PITT, CLE,TENN, etc.). The Pats should be favored in 2/3 of the games or more, whereas the pats had not been favored much at all the recent two seasons. If you think the pats are a 9-8 team, then add 2 wins onto that due to this easy schedule. So 11-6 and at least a wild card. Keeping Maye on the field will be a key.