NFL Strength of Schedule for 2025 – SOS Rankings & Calculations

• 2025-26 NFL strength of schedule rankings for every team from toughest to easiest
• See SBD’s proprietary (and more accurate) method for calculating NFL Strength of Schedule
• The Giants face the NFL’s toughest schedule in 2025, while the 49ers see the easiest schedule

While there were a good number of games leaked early, the full 2025 NFL schedule release happened on Wednesday, May 14. However, we knew each team’s opponents for the 2025 season after last season ended, and also had data from sportsbooks on how each team is projected to perform well before the release. I have compiled all of this data to calculate the NFL strength of schedule for every team using my much more accurate method. See each team’s NFL SOS below!

Note: 1 is the most difficult, while 32 is the easiest 2024-25 schedule.

2025 NFL Strength of Schedule Rankings

For too long we have wasted our time using team’s record from the previous season to calculate NFL strength of schedule rankings for the upcoming season. Stop this! There are far too many flaws involved in this method.

We should be using something much more forward-looking for NFL strength of schedule instead. Back in 2018, I came up with the idea to use the win totals put out by sportsbooks each season to determine how difficult each team’s schedule was going to be.

Using 2025 NFL win totals, I have come up with my own NFL Strength of Schedule by adding the projected wins (from sportsbooks) of each team’s 17 opponents this season.

The range in my NFL Strength of Schedule rankings is from 131.5, on the easy end (up from 128.5 last year), to 155.9 on the tough end (which is up a little from 154.5 last year). The median sum of 2025 opponents’ win totals is 145.9, while the average (mode) is 145.2.

The team with the toughest 2025 NFL schedule is the New York Giants, while the team with the easiest 2025 NFL schedule is the San Francisco 49ers.

You can read on for some further analysis of this year’s NFL SOS rankings, or go check out the full NFL schedule.

Who Has the Hardest Schedule in the NFL 2025?

• New York Giants

After looking at the Giants’ 2025 schedule, Jaxson Dart may be lucky to ride the bench in his rookie season. New York will have to deal with the defending champion Eagles twice (as always), the NFC-runner-up Commanders twice (as always), and also have two games against what I believe is an underrated Cowboys team. Of their three divisional foes, Dallas has the lowest win total set at sportsbooks, with the average over/under coming out to 7.8.

The Giants’ schedule remains tough when they get out of the NFC East as well, as their division has drawn the NFC North and AFC West. This means games against top contenders in the Chiefs and Lions, as well as four other playoff teams from last season in the Chargers, Broncos, Vikings, and Packers. But maybe the worst luck of all comes from who they draw as a fourth-placed team. The Patriots and Saints are lighter opponents, as the fourth-placed teams should see, but they also get the San Francisco 49ers, who finished last in the NFC West this past season, largely due to a laundry list of injuries to some of their best players. The 49ers’ win total for this season is set at 10.5, which is not very common for a team who finished last the year prior.

New York Giants’ 2025-26 Schedule

New York’s average opponent in 2025 is a 9.2-win team. While they only have five games against teams whose regular season wins over/under is above 10, they only have five games against opponents whose 2025 win total is less than 8.5.

The gap between the Giants’ schedule and the team with the next-most difficult schedule is only 2.5 combined wins, but that takes Cleveland’s (the team with the second-toughest schedule) average opponent down to a 9-win team.

Who Has the Easiest 2025 NFL Schedule?

• San Francisco 49ers

The easiest schedule in the 2025 NFL season belongs to the San Francisco 49ers. The NFC West is full of what sportsbooks believe are mediocre teams. Outside of San Francisco, the Rams have the highest projected win total at 9.5, while the Seahawks and Cardinals are seeing average over/unders of 8.3 and 8.5, respectively.

But where the 49ers’ schedule gets even lighter is when they get outside of the NFC West. Their division draws the NFC South, where three teams are seeing average win total over/unders of 7.5 or less, and the highest is just 9.3. Then they also get the AFC South, which has the exact same breakdown of regular season win over/unders. The icing on the cake comes from them finishing last in the NFC West last season, meaning they have drawn the Bears, Browns, and Giants as their final three games.

San Francisco 49ers’ 2025-26 Schedule

San Francisco’s average opponent is just a 7.7-win team and they only face four opponents with win totals higher than 8.5. They will play five games against teams with win totals of 6.5 or less.

The second-easiest schedule in the league belongs to the Patriots, whose schedule is notably tougher with a 134.5 combined win total from their opponents.

Other 2025 NFL SOS Notes

• No team has a tougher first half than the Kansas City Chiefs. While they will get a bit of an easier game in Week 3 against the Giants, their other opponents include the Chargers, Eagles, Ravens, Lions, Commanders, and Bills among others, making their average opponent a 10.5-win team through the first nine weeks. Their first half schedule is significantly tougher than the rest of the league’s, as the Giants possess the second-toughest, but only see an average 9.7-win team through the first nine weeks. It will get much easier for the Chiefs in the second half, though, as they only see an average 7.2-win team over the final nine weeks.
• The Arizona Cardinals have the easiest first half schedule, only having to deal with an average 6.9-win team. They will play four games against teams whose regular season wins over/under is 7.5 or less in the first nine weeks. However, their average second half opponent is a 10.2-win team, making them the team with the biggest discrepancy between first and second half SOS.
• The toughest second half schedule belongs to the Green Bay Packers, who have to deal with a 10.3-win team over the final nine weeks of the season.
• The San Francisco 49ers have the easiest second half schedule, only seeing an average 6.6-win team over the final nine weeks.
• The team with the toughest first four games is the Cleveland Browns, whose worst opponent in the first four weeks is a projected 9.5-win team (the Packers). Cleveland will see the Bengals, Ravens, and Lions as their other three opponents.
• The team with the easiest first four games is the Washington Commanders. After opening the season against the Giants, they will take on the Packers, Raiders, and Falcons. Three of those four have projected win totals of 7.5 or less.

How to Determine NFL Strength of Schedule

The typical method for calculating NFL strength of schedule has been to take the combined win/loss records of all opponents in a schedule. If you are looking for strength of schedule to break a tie at the end of the season, you simply take the records of all opponents from the current season.

If you want to know strength of schedule as we head into the season – to know which teams have the perceived easiest and toughest schedules ahead – there are many different ways, but many of them are pretty lousy. The most common method is to look at records from the previous season. I think this is an awful method, though, and that’s why I have come up with my own, which calls upon NFL regular season win over/unders from sportsbooks. Let me explain why my method is better and more accurate.

For starters, free agency, the NFL Draft, and other player/coach movement are all capable of dramatically changing a team in just one offseason – see the 2017 Los Angeles Rams under Sean McVay or the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers with Tom Brady.

Second, injuries/suspensions to star players, namely quarterbacks, can result in a good team suffering through a bad season – see the 2017 Green Bay Packers without Aaron Rodgers. If you’re going to tell me the 2017 Packers are a 7-9 team with Rodgers under center, I’m here to call you crazy.

Sure, sportsbooks can be influenced by where the money is going, and scheduling is sort of worked into their lines, but their win totals still at least reflect the current team, not the past one.

The 2018 Buffalo Bills are a great example of why using projected win totals to calculate strength of schedule is much more appropriate than last year’s record. If we were judging Buffalo by 2017 alone, they would have been counted as a very respectable 9-7 team.

However, the Bills traded QB Tyrod Taylor in the offseason, and entered 2018 with AJ McCarron and then-rookie Josh Allen under center. Buffalo should not have been viewed as a nine-win team. Their 6.5 projected wins were a much closer projection to what they actually were: a 6-win team.

Another example is the 2018 Houston Texans. Only getting six starts out of Deshaun Watson before he tore his ACL, and missing JJ Watt (among others) for 11 games resulted in the 2017 Texans posting an awful 4-12 record. But with both of those players back in 2018, they posted an 11-5 record. Regarding them as a 9.5-win team like sportsbooks suggested was much closer to the team they were.

How Can NFL Strength of Schedule Help You as a Bettor?

No offseason NFL bets should be made before at least considering strength of schedule.

Whether you’re betting Super Bowl futures, NFL win totals, player awards, or even a prop as obscure as the first head coach to be fired, strength of schedule is going to play a major role.

An easy regular season schedule is likely to lead to a higher-seed come playoff time. And with 36 of 70 no. 1 seeds advancing to the Super Bowl since the 1990 season, it’s clear that home field advantage is significant in the postseason. That higher seed in the playoffs also correlates with winning the NFL MVP. Take a look at the last ten NFL MVP winners in the table below:

When it comes to player awards, the average number of regular season wins for the last ten NFL MVPs is 13.1.

So once you have narrowed down your list of potentials for the MVP, it would be wise to consult which of your candidates face easy/difficult schedules, since they’ll likely need to win at least 12 games to take home the honor. Keep this in mind as you scan the NFL MVP odds and favorites for the upcoming season.

NFL Strength of Schedule FAQ

Archived NFL Strength of Schedule:

• 2024
• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018