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From Aaron Rodgers’ revenge to Super Bowl rematch, here are the 10 must-watch grudge matches of 2025 NFL season | Yahoo Sports

8) Baltimore Ravens at Kansas City Chiefs — Week 4, Sept. 28

The Ravens lost to the Chiefs last season with an out-of-bounds touchdown attempt deciding the league season opener. And Baltimore dropped the AFC championship — and that elusive Super Bowl berth — to the Chiefs the playoffs prior. Mahomes and Co. will always be a reminder that Jackson’s two-time MVP status and perennial excellent performance has not taken his franchise where he most wants to go. Slaying the Kansas City dragon is his next step.

NFL schedule overreactions: Cowboys, Lions really need to play on Christmas? Chiefs in prime time too much? | CBS Sports

Chiefs play in too many prime-time games

Overreaction or reality: Reality

The Chiefs are a ratings juggernaut and are fun to watch every week. That being said, the NFL gave the team that has won three Super Bowls over the last six seasons too much exposure. This year, the NFL decided to give the Chiefs seven prime-time games — the most in the league. The Chiefs are playing in five prime-time games over the first eight weeks, tied for the most of any team in NFL history.

In fairness to the Chiefs, they have a loaded schedule of quality opponents. The Eagles, Bills and Ravens are part of the Chiefs’ schedule gauntlet, along with the Lions and Commanders. There’s five potential prime-time games, but the Chiefs ended up having just two of them on the prime-time slate.

The Chargers (Brazil game), Giants and Jaguars were three of the five prime-time games in the first eight weeks. Did the NFL really need to make Chiefs-Giants and Chiefs-Jaguars prime-time games? Couldn’t they fall into the Sunday afternoon slate in favor of a better matchup?

The Chiefs also play of Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is also part of their standalone slate (Christmas also counts as a prime-time game since the Chiefs are the night game). Kansas City actually has 10 standalone games, or 58.8% of the regular-season schedule.

Kansas City is in the national window too much, but the Chiefs deliver massive ratings. The NFL clearly used high ratings as part of its scheduling formula for networks this year.

The All-PFF Team: NFL’s best players of the past 25 years | PFF

WIDE RECEIVER: Tyreek Hill (93.8 Career PFF Grade)

Hill is entering Year 10 of his NFL career and boasts a significant sample size of dominance, featuring the third-best PFF receiving grade for his position and several single-season records.

Hill broke Julio Jones’ PFF record for receiving grade in a season by delivering a 93.8 mark, and he also set a record in yards per route run in a season (3.72) — a title previously held by Steve Smith for 15 years (2008).

Honorable Mention: Calvin Johnson

Best, worst of NFL 2025 schedule: Chiefs-Chargers, Sam Darnold vs. Vikings must-watch TV | The Athletic

Best international showdown: Chiefs-Chargers in Brazil, Week 1

The NFL schedulers started off the 2025 international series with a bang, treating the Corinthians Arena fans to a matchup between a pair of AFC West rivals and 2024 playoff teams. In Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert, we could see two of the best quarterbacks of this generation engage in a shootout — if the game doesn’t wind up being a defensive struggle. The Chiefs swept the Chargers last season, but those two contests produced a combined 63 points, and Kansas City’s margins of victory were only seven and two points, respectively.

NFL’s highest-paid QBs: Brock Purdy joins Top 10, Dak Prescott remains highest-paid per year | CBS Sports

The $53 million average annual value on the deal ranks tied for seventh at the position, behind only Dak Prescott, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa. The reported $181 million in guarantees, if accurate, would rank eighth. The total value of $265 million is fifth behind Patrick Mahomes, Allen, Lawrence and Burrow.

Prior to Purdy, Josh Allen was the most recent quarterback to break the bank with the Bills superstar receiving a six-year, $330 million extension from Buffalo. The deal includes an NFL-record $250 million guaranteed.

Allen still had four years and $140 million left on his current deal, but after an MVP season, the Bills rewarded their franchise cornerstone with a deal that ties him to the team through 2030. He certainly earned the pay bump after becoming the first player in league history with at least 25 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns as well as 10 or fewer interceptions.

Around the NFL

Sources — Brock Purdy, 49ers agree to 5-year, $265M deal | ESPN

On Friday, the Niners put significant action behind those words as they agreed to a five-year, $265 million deal that includes $181 million in overall guaranteed money with Purdy, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

It’s a massive pay raise for Purdy, known as Mr. Irrelevant for being the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft.

He earned $2.6 million total over his first three NFL seasons, making him the NFL’s 76th-highest-paid QB over that span (2022-24), according to Roster Management System. His new contract has an average salary of $53 million, meaning he will get paid more per week under his new deal ($2.9 million) than he did over the first three years of his career combined.

At the league meeting in Florida, general manager John Lynch made it clear that he believed a deal was in the offing.

“I think we’re going to get the deal done,” Lynch said March 31. “That’s what I believe. We’ll just leave it at that.”

Pete Carroll Explains How Tom Brady Influenced His Decision to Join Raiders | SI

“When Tom came on board here, it changed my outlook to come here,” Carroll said during an appearance on Brock & Salt. “I thought that would be one of the great opportunities of all time, to have his presence. His presence is strong, big factor with John Spytek as well. … We’re trying to infuse Tom’s mentality. We’re trying to bring it into the organization because it’s so good, so unique, so one of a kind. I think it helps us have the opportunity to have a one of a kind franchise.”

Carroll also noted that though Brady isn’t often at the facilities, he speaks with him “pretty regularly” over the phone and raved about the conversations they’ve had.

“We’re phone buddies,” Carroll said. “We’ve talked a ton of times. Talking philosophy with Tom, you can imagine what a thrill it is. He’s the all-time competitor. It’s not just how he played, it’s how he lives and how he sees the world and attacks every opportunity that he has. We’re so eye-to-eye on that, it’s been a blast. That’s really been fun. The challenge of it is to bring that mentality and connect it to an entire franchise.”

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

2025 NFL Schedule Release: Chiefs becoming ‘World Team’ of NFL football

You may have read that the Chiefs are tied with the Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys with a total of eight primetime (and so-called “standalone”) games. But that doesn’t consider two other games available to almost every American television: the Week 2 FOX matchup between Kansas City and the Philadelphia Eagles and Week 9’s CBS game featuring the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills. Both will be played in the late-afternoon window — and will be the only game on each network’s schedule.

These two contests are among only eight that will get this treatment in 2025. Both the Eagles and Bills will have one more nationally televised late-afternoon matchup, while the Seattle Seahawks and Las Vegas Raiders will each get two. Six other teams will have one apiece.

When these are added in, the Chiefs have the most national games with 10, followed by the Eagles with nine, the Commanders, Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings with eight and the Bills and Detroit Lions with seven.

There’s been some bellyaching about this. Our Jared Sapp grasped it very well in his Thursday-morning take.

You may have a friend or cousin living in another market groaning that the Chiefs have too many high-profile slots. Someone you’ve interacted with on social media might even swear off watching Kansas City in prime time for fear that a few seconds of the broadcast may feature a high-profile romantic partner of a certain tight end. Someone somewhere still clings to anger over perceived biased officiating, vowing to never tune in to the Chiefs — or possibly football in general — again.

The NFL appears ready to call the bluff of its most angry clients.

But the league isn’t doing this to make its fans angry. It’s doing it because the Chiefs draw big ratings. That’s not because Kansas City is a big market. It’s just that the team is fun to watch.