My Thoughts on the NFL's International Games

The 2025 NFL schedule was released over a month ago on May 14, and I took a different approach in comparison to last year. Instead of writing about all of the important slots at once, I decided to divide them into categories. I began with what's described as the most important spot in the weekly schedule, the Sunday Night Football games, and then the focus turned to the Thursday Night Football spot that kicks off the week. For this story, I'll focus on the international games, and to do this properly, I have to give a bit of a history lesson.

The NFL wasn't really a "worldly" league like the other three main leagues (especially the NHL). That would change a bit in 2005, but they only placed preseason games outside of U.S. at times. I do recall a regular season game in Mexico between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers that year, but it would be another two years before Roger Goodell decided to seriously take the league to international lands on a regular basis.

The NFL International Series was born in 2007, when the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants faced each other on October 28 of that year at London's Wembley Stadium. The Giants won that game, 13-10, which ended up being part of their run to winning Super Bowl XLII. For the first few years, it was only that one international game per year, and always in London. It wasn't until 2013 that we would see multiple international games in the same year, but still, these games were in London. During that year, it was two games, but beginning on the following year (2014), it would be three games internationally. On October 30, 2016, Washington and Cincinnati played the first OT game on international soil, as well as the first and only tie, with the game ending 27-27 at Wembley.

Also in 2016, the NFL finally started branching in other international cities. Mexico's first game in 11 years saw the Raiders win, 27-20, over the Texans. Famously, in 2018, a Monday Night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Rams was supposed to be played in Mexico, but the field was in terrible shape. The game ended up played in LA and it ended up being one of the greatest games played in the last decade, with the Rams winning, 54-51; the third highest scoring game in NFL history. Recent years have seen games placed in Germany and Brazil, with Germany's first game seeing the Buccaneers defeat the Seahawks, 21-16, in Munich's Allianz Arena, which hosted the only other OT game on international soil: the Panthers defeating the Giants, 20-17 last season. Speaking of last year, that was the year that Brazil hosted a game for the first time, the Eagles' 34-29 win over the Packers on Week 1 of that season.

An attribute that many have noticed in these international games: the NFL tends to send the worst teams across the pond. The running joke among fans is the league's trying to boot these teams out of the country. One team who has played damn near every year on international soil: none other than the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jags have played 13 international games, all in London, and they are 7-6 outside the U.S. all time. Six teams have never lost an international game, and the best of those six just happens to be the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings have played four such games and won all of them. As a Packers fan, I spent years pretty much begging for an international game, we finally played our first one in 2022. So far, the Packers are 0-2 on international soil.

Regarding this year, we're getting seven international games, and it looks like the Sao Paulo opening week special game will be a tradition now. On September 5, 2025, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers will face off in Sao Paulo, serving as the second game overall in this regular season. The NFL will head to Dublin for the first time, as the Minnesota Vikings and the Pittsburgh Steelers will play their on September 28. The Vikings will head to London a week later against the Cleveland Browns, and that will be the first of three straight London games scheduled, as Broncos/Jets (October 12) and Rams/Jaguars (October 19) will be played in London as well. On November 9, the Atlanta Falcons and the Indianapolis Colts will face off in Berlin, and finally, it's the first-ever game in Madrid: Commanders/Dolphins on November 16.

I truly love the international games with a passion. The ones played on Sunday are a treat, because those countries are many hours ahead of the U.S., time wise. That means it's early morning football in America, and that's in the East Coast. For people like me in the Pacific Time Zone, We get to wake up hella early (usually 6:30AM PST) for these games. That's beautiful. You wake up in the morning, and there's football. I hear a lot of people kinda bash the international games; claiming that they're "boring" and they mess up teams' schedules, but I myself enjoy those games so much; they are amazing games and usually nail-biting. Plus again: you get football before breakfast. That's beautiful.

So yeah, we will have a healthy batch of international games this year, with two games in new places. Next year, a game will emanate from Australia for the first time, and I've heard talks about an NFL game taking place somewhere in Africa--that would be absolutely iconic if that happened. I love the international games, the ones that come on really early in the morning on Sundays often take place in October/early November, which is a good sports period in the calendar. I am immensely ready for the NFL season, especially those awesome international games this year.