NFL 2025-2026 season

Sky Sports NFL
Cowboys @ Eagles - Fri - 01.20

As well as tonight's game, Sky have 5 games on Sunday, showing 2 at 6pm & 2 at 9pm (on sky sports nfl & sky sports +) plus Sunday Night Football. So there will be 9 NFL games on uk tv this week! with 7 on sky plus 2 on Channel 5 & 5 Action

Got my NFL Fantasy Football all set and its called "The Green Regime" (WWE Wrestling fans will get the name)

Especially looking forward to Monday Night Football myself

Really seems to have come round quicker than last season.

Great news there's so many games to start us off. It all seemed to be in slow motion to start last year, but thank god it's back.

I'd be surprised if the season starter is much of a contest, Super Bowl Champions Eagles are strong favourites, the Cowboys haven't helped their chances of even making the Playoffs by refusing to pay Micah Parsons what he is worth, losing him to Conference rivals Packers isn't a smart move. As a pass rusher he is statistically up there with the very best that has played the game.

Week 1
Eagles 24 - 21 Cowboys
A strange game with a first half were both teams seemingly marched the ball up the field with the Eagles holding a 21 -20 advantage by virtue of restricting the Cowboys to field goals on 2 of their 4 possessions.
Not much to report in the 2nd half aside from a Jake Eliot field goal in the 3rd Quarter to extent their. The one significant turning point was when the Cowboys fumbled on the Eagles 10 yard line. The recovery by the Eagles was followed by an hour long delay to the game when an electrical storm swept through the area. On the resumption the defences stepped up & both punters finally saw some action. The Cowboys even managed to inflict the only sack of the game on Hurts who had a clean but unspectacular game as he completed 19 of 21 passes for 152 yards & rushed for 62 yards & 2 TD's outdoing Barkley with 60 yards & a TD.
Prescott completed 21 passes from 34 attempts for 188 yards, his primary target was CeeDee Lamb who had 7 catches for 110 yards, but importantly failed to hang on to 3 throws that he would have expected to make at least 2 of them. With those drops the Cowboys chances had gone & the Eagles ran out the clock.

The game started in controversy with the ejection of Jalen Carter after the kick off. Carter spat on Hurts, but later footage shows Hurts spitting in the direction of Carter. I doubt we've heard the last of this, with the potential for Carter receiving further punishment & Hurts must surely have questions to answer.

All in all a decent start to the 2025 season with the bitter rivalry clearly on display.

Chargers 27 - 21 Chiefs
Before last night the Chief were 9-1 in week 1 over the last 9 seasons. Aside from their own fans, everyone else will be looking for the slightest sign of decline in the Chiefs dynasty. To some degree we witnessed some of that in the shape of Mahomes who had his most vanilla season of his career. He had just 13 20+ yard passes, ranked 24th. But the Chiefs being the Chiefs they found ways to win, rarely completely putting team away, but more often than not doing just enough. Their 15-2 regular season record is testimony to that.
But in Sao Paulo Brazil there was no last minute Mahomes magic. The Chargers opened the scoring when Herbert connected with Quentin Johnston with a 5 yard TD pass. After that both teams traded a brace of Field Goals, the last of which was a panicked attempt from the Chiefs in the dying seconds of the 1st half, after failing to get out of bounds & stop the clock the players only just got get before Butker converted from 59 yards. But in the 3rd quarter the Chiefs kicker missed an extra point which would've tied the game up after a Mahomes improv TD run. Mahomes was the most effect rusher in the game with 6 carriers for 57 yards, with neither team gaining 100 yards on the ground.
Late in the 3rd the Chargers extended their lead to 8 points with Keenan Allen 11 yard TD grab.
The Chiefs responded in the 4th quarter with a Kelce 37 yard touchdown, a game tying 2 point conversion failed. Mahomes only managed to find his target man on one other occasion. Already hamstrung by the loss of star receiver Rashee Rice who is serving a 6 week suspension, they lost Xavier Worthy on the opening drive after he came off worse when he collided with Kelce on a crossing route on the Chiefs opening drive. Hollywood Brown had 10 catches for 99 yards & Juju Smith-Schuster had 5-55, but neither were able to provide the game-breaking plays that the 2 absentees may we have provided.
Herbert found Jonson for his 2nd TD of the game a 23 yard catch. The Chiefs had to settle for a field goal on their next drive & hope their defence could provide a stop, but Herbert scrambled for 19 yard to take his team into the 2 minute warning after which they were able to run out the clock.

Super Bowls aren't won in September & Mahomes is 17-4 in the Playoffs, they have something to prove after the Super Bowl defeat, can they climb the mountain again ?

Well crafted reviews Boomer, as always.

It's always hard to read into things in the early weeks of the season. I think the intensity takes a while usually to get going - players could be slightly rusty after the summer and newly drafted players might need time to get to know their new surroundings and develop an understanding with their new team mates.

With the travelling games to other countries comes a sense of trepidation. I've seen bad injuries caused by playing fields not properly conditioned and below NFL standard. Nobody wants to get sidelined before the season's begun.

Mahomes needs a power season again after a pretty ordinary season by his standards last year. I think the pressure told last year on him and on the Chiefs record. For me it's what made them come up short in the SB.

They'll need stronger defence to prevent similar endings to the Chargers defeat.