This week, the NFL released the full schedule for the 2025. The Jacksonville Jaguars won four games on their way to a 4-13 season in 2024, so they won’t have a tough strength of schedule. If not for the Tennessee Titans and their three wins, the Jags would have been buried in the basement of the AFC South.
ESPN recently put together its list of projections for the 2025 season. It’s a pretty thorough 80 pages and Mike Clay should be given a lot of credit for the work he put into cobbling it all together. However, while it’s a lot of fun to sift through, just about every prediction should be taken with a grain of salt, especially at this time of year.
That shouldn’t stop anyone (and it doesn’t) from analyzing the upcoming schedule for the Jaguars. The full list of games and start times is listed on the Jaguars’ website.
Weeks one and two of the 2025 season
While everyone knows it’s certainly a fool’s errand to try to accurately predict wins and losses for an upcoming season, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The NFL is a 365-day news cycle and the schedule release is one of the flash points for offseason chatter.
This will be more about the potential of the upcoming opponents and less about W’s and L’s, which really don’t mean anything anyway at this point.
Here are the first two games with ESPN’s win probability in parentheses:
Week 1: vs. Carolina Panthers (55%): In case the fans didn’t notice, and judging by the attendance they didn’t, the Panthers (5-12) actually got better as the 2024 season went on last year. The Jaguars will host their NFL twin (they both were born into the NFL in 1995) in a 1 P.M. Sunday afternoon game and considering both teams are (hopefully) on the rise, it should actually be a good game with some young stars to watch.
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young has had a rough start to his career after being the No. 1-overall pick in 2023, but he really did start to look more comfortable as the 2024 season progressed. Young started 14 games and ended with a respectable 2,403 yards with 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions. The Panthers were actually one last-minute touchdown drop from beating the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles last year and shouldn’t be the doormat that they were for most of last season.
Carolina spent the No. 8-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft on Arizona wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, which should help to take some pressure off of Young. They also fortified some positions on defense in free agency with signings like linebacker Pat Jones II, safety Tre’von Moehrig and defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton. In short, they should be an improved team.
ESPN’s 55% win probability rate is probably pretty accurate. The Jags should have a slight advantage with a more experienced quarterback in Trevor Lawrence playing at home.
Week 2: at Cincinnati Bengals (29%): Another 1 P.M. Sunday afternoon game for the Jaguars. The Bengals finished (9-8) in 2024, but there is much more to their story. While quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase were a nightmare for opposing teams last season, the rest of the team was mostly sweet dreams.
Burrow sniffed the 5,000-yard passing-yard mark with 4,918 yards to go with 43 touchdowns and nine picks. Wow. The fact that he wasn’t in serious consideration for MVP says everything you need to know about the rest of the team. Meanwhile, Chase won the triple crown for wide receivers, leading the NFL in receiving yards (1,708), touchdowns (17) and receptions (127). With Tee Higgins freshly signed and coming back healthy, the Bengals should again have a potent offense, provided the offensive line can block. That might be a big “if.”
On defense, outside of Trey Hendrickson and his NFL-leading 17.5 sacks, the Bengals were miserable to quite miserable, ranking 25th in the league in total defense. They attempted to address the issue in the draft by selecting Texas A&M edge Shemar Stewart in the first round and South Carolina linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. in the second, though expecting big contributions from that pair in Week 2 might be asking a lot.
Despite the Bengals not loving their current stadium situation, they are still home for this game. ESPN gives the Jags a 29% chance to win, but it might be much higher than that, especially if the Bengals can’t cover Travis Hunter (a distinct possibility). The Jaguars are going to make this tougher than people think and an early upset is not out of the cards.
Weeks three and four
Could the Jaguars be 2-0 heading into Week 3? It’s entirely possible, and while one would hate to put so much on the quarterback, it really does depend on Lawrence. If he’s playing anywhere close to the level that his draft position (No. 1 overall in 2021) and salary (five-years, $275 million) dictate, the Jags could absolutely start racking up early wins.
Week 3: vs Houston Texans (36%): Seeing a pattern with the schedule? The Jaguars are playing at one o’clock on Sunday again. The NFL schedule makers clearly aren’t dying to put the Jaguars in prime time outside of their usual international games.
The Texans won the AFC South last year at 10-7, but the shine comes off of that accomplishment when taking a glance at the rest of the division. Everyone else had a losing record and two of the teams (Jaguars and Panthers) selected in the top eight in the NFL Draft.
It looks like the Texans found their face-of-the-franchise quarterback in C.J. Stroud. Drafted in the first round of the 2023 draft, Stroud started all 17 games last year and had 3,727 yards to go with 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Those numbers are solid, but not eye-popping. It should be noted that underrated wide receiver Nico Collins left a Week 5 game with a hamstring injury and didn’t return until Week 11. That’s crushing for any offense. Stroud’s other major weapon, Stefon Diggs, went down with a torn ACL in late October and missed the rest of the season on injured reserve.
Those are brutal losses for any team, so the fact that the team still not only made the playoffs, but won their Wild Card game against the Los Angeles Chargers, is pretty impressive. Collins will be back in 2025, but with Diggs heading to the New England Patriots, the Texans attempted to fill that void by selecting Iowa St. wide receiver Jayden Higgins in the second round of the draft.
And while running backs like Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry tend to get the glory for running backs, do not sleep on Joe Mixon. Mixon started 14 games in 2024 and finished with 1,016 yards rushing and 12 total touchdowns. Mixon can be a problem for any rush defense and makes the Texans offense that much more dangerous.
The Texans may be young and finding their way, but they are talented and potent on offense. The Jaguars are at home, but Houston is likely to take care of business.
Week 4: at San Francisco 49ers (41%): The Jaguars finally break out of the Sunday afternoon Red Zone free-for-all and get a late afternoon game! Sure, it’s because the 49ers are on the West Coast, but still.
This is an intriguing game for the Jaguars as the Niners are quite an enigma at this point. It was only the last few years that they were in NFC Championship Games, Super Bowls and were always in the pre-season championship contender conversations. But now, they have gotten old, injured and have been losing their identity.
They traded wide receiver Deebo Samuel to the Washington Commanders for a fifth-round pick. Their other star wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk got a huge contract last year, then tore his ACL and then was the subject of trade rumors. Running back Christian McCaffrey is a super stud, but his injury history is well documented and his rehabs have involved trips to Europe for special treatments. The likelihood of him returning to his lofty status are about as likely has him playing in all 17 games in 2025.
The Niners did just sign quarterback Brock Purdy to a huge contract, which despite some reports actually averages about $45 million annually. However, it remains to be seen what he’ll look like without some of the previously mentioned weapons.
On defense, the outlook isn’t much better. The 49ers lost linebacker Dre Greenlaw, safety Talanoa Hufanga, cornerback Charvarius Ward, linebacker Leonard Floyd and defensive tackles Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins. A once vaunted defense is now leaking oil.
Despite the problems the Niners are facing, the Jaguars still have to cross the country and try to get a win. Until we’re able to see the complete collapse of San Francisco (and we might sooner rather than later), at this point it’s likely that Niners win this game.
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