Bleeding Green Nation
If history is our guide, the NFL’s first game of the season will feature the Eagles at home, but against whom?
Four months.
That’s how long we have to wait until the 2025 NFL season kicks off with your Philadelphia Eagles the defending Super Bowl champions. On September 4, the league will raise the curtains on the season with their Kickoff Game, the official start of the ‘25 season. And if history is our guide, the defending Super Bowl champions, your Philadelphia Eagles, will play host at Lincoln Financial Field.
There are eight teams against whom the Birds, who won the Super Bowl, could play: the Cowboys, Giants, Commanders, Bears, Lions, Broncos, Rams and Raiders.
There are some truly marquee possibilities in there, and here is my ranking of who I would like to see the defending Super Bowl champions play as they attempt to defend the Super Bowl they won by humiliating Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs 40-22.
Let’s not kid ourselves, for most of last season, the Lions were the best team in the NFC. They were the No. 1 seed, going 15-2 with an offense that seemingly scored at will and mirrored the Eagles’ run-happy, big-play scheme. But injuries decimated their defense as the season went along, leaving them thinner than a piece of single-ply toilet paper by the time the Washington Commanders faced them in the divisional round of the playoffs.
Obviously, the Eagles were pleased things worked out the way they did. The Commanders won, the Eagles got to host the NFC Championship Game against a rookie QB, and the rest is history. But we never got to see these two titans ball out on the big stage, so it only seems right to open the season with perhaps the league’s two best teams going at it in an alternate reality NFC title game rematch.
All that being said, the Commanders’ ascent to the NFC Championship Game was remarkable, and there is perhaps no more exciting a player in the league than Daniels. The NFL loves to feature its marketable stars, and even though they lost 55-23 in the title game, very little of that was Daniels’ fault. He actually played quite well, and the Commanders were one of only three teams to beat the Eagles a season ago.
How can the NFL resist an NFC Championship Game rematch between division rivals featuring the hottest young QB in the league? It will be difficult. Personally, having played Washington three times last year (and the Eagles really should have won the middle game they lost in DC), I’m more interested in seeing how they match up with Detroit, but opening against the Commanders would be a ton of fun, too.
You could very easily argue the Rams should be at the top of this list, given the legendary game these two teams played in the snow last January. The Eagles seemingly had this...
