2024 NFL Schedule: The 13 Most Interesting Games of the Season

Because the NFL goes to absurd lengths to protect its schedule—the contents of which we know months in advance but the order of which is fought over by people who care not the least about the health of a football team or competitive balance—release day is a difficult league holiday to get excited about. So, when crafting a “best games” list, it’s important to avoid the obvious. Of course all of the “best games” are already known. They will all be on Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET and, occasionally, on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Thursday Night Football. So, if you would like a true list of “best games” then just google the prime-time schedules.

Here, we’re talking about games that can produce the kinds of moments that transcend marketability. Sure, we’ll talk about the Harbaugh Bowl—though not in the way you might imagine—but we’re also going to think a little bigger and a little more creatively. We’ll list them not from best to worst, but in chronological order to get a feel for how the season will play out.

1. Cleveland Browns vs. Dallas Cowboys (Week 1, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET)

The Browns are coming off a poetic playoff walloping at the hands of the Houston Texans. They’re eyeing a new stadium. Deshaun Watson, the quarterback they mortgaged everything for, has been notably mediocre and is coming off shoulder surgery this offseason. He now has two game-ready backup quarterbacks capable of supplanting him, in Jameis Winston and Tyler Huntley. I think this is an interesting moment.

With four prime-time games this season, the NFL seems to be slowly letting the Browns out of forced hiding when it comes to its premier schedule (though it’s not like it would have made a difference, since many networks barely touched on why Watson was suspended and available for Cleveland in the first place). Anyway, there was a great deal of internal positivity in Cleveland surrounding Watson’s final game against the Baltimore Ravens last season, and I’m willing to entertain the idea that he’s finally found football shape after a very long ramp up. If that’s the case, we’ll see the early trappings of it here. And as a bonus, Tom Brady will narrate the whole thing, only to be roasted (again) afterward. Kidding. I hope. 

2. New York Jets at San Francisco 49ers (Week 1, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET)

Robert Saleh came to Florham Park in 2021 at a time when the Jets’ franchise was seriously ailing. A completely mismatched front office and coaching staff led by Mike Maccagnan created a hollow roster that was the result of a few draft picks and signings that were some combination of overly aggressive and political. Since that time, the Jets have built a legitimate team, a roster that is one quarterback away from being one of the six or seven best teams in the AFC.

A game against the 49ers, who are coming off a Super Bowl loss, is a measuring stick in that the 49ers are a gold standard and the patriarch of a tree that the Jets are emulating. Saleh came from the 49ers. Many of the coaches from his initial staff were directly tied to the program, and the parallels between the teams’ personnel strategies are evident. Giving the Jets a chance to play them with a healthy Aaron Rodgers in Week 1 is an opportunity to see how far the plan has come. The Jets have run into some bad luck, both with Rodgers’s injury and the Zach Wilson development plan, which was microwaved prematurely. That won’t all get erased, but a win over the 49ers, or a tight game in which strength and strength are somewhat evenly matched, would go a long way toward legitimizing the process. On that note, the Jets were one horrendous call away from potentially pulling an upset over the Kansas City Chiefs last year and handed the Philadelphia Eagles their first loss of the season.

The other element to this, of course, is that it’s Monday Night Football in a near-identical setting to where Rodgers tore his Achilles four plays into last season. There are some ghosts to confront here, certainly. I think it’s more than a little callous on the NFL’s part to not only put Rodgers back on Monday Night Football so we can draw those comparisons, but put him opposite Leonard Floyd, the player who (as a Bill last year) sacked Rodgers on the play in which he suffered the injury. In fact, if I were Jets owner Woody Johnson, I would say something publically today. It’s one thing to drum up an obvious story line, it’s a completely different thing to put Rodgers and the franchise in a situation where they’re forced to relive one of the worst moments in modern Jets history.

A postscript here before we move on: I wrote a year ago about how the Jets’ 2023 schedule represented some merciless treatment from the NFL. Knowing that within the first five weeks of this season, the team will fly across the country to play the defending NFC champions and then head to London feels unfair yet again.

3. Philadelphia Eagles vs. Atlanta Falcons (Week 2, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET)

Just a few short weeks after the Eagles completed their collapse and flamed out of the playoffs, many around the league wondered whether Nick Sirianni would end up being replaced by Bill Belichick.

While I don’t think Belichick will lord over looming coaching vacancies this season like Sean Payton did two years ago while he spent a year in the media, Belichick is very much associated with two potential openings in the NFC East: Dallas and Philadelphia (I don’t buy the Giants connection, personally). Everything about Sirianni’s offseason staffing changes suggest that this move was made to immediately plug the canoe and save face in the interim. Instead of sticking with DC Sean Desai, a Vic Fangio disciple, he ended up just luring Fangio himself. When OC Brian Johnson struggled, Sirianni pivoted to Kellen Moore, which will probably stretch the offense more vertically.

By the time this game takes place, we won’t have a complete picture of how those moves paid off. However, fans of 31 other teams may enjoy the idea of Belichick himself analyzing the team during the first half in his role on ESPN’s Manningcast, as we may have a forum in which ownership is taking notes and a coach is looking over his shoulder if the Eagles aren’t performing.

4. Cincinnati Bengals vs. Washington Commanders (Week 3, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET)

Joe Burrow was, at one time, considered a one-year wonder who weathered the nontraditional (but now highly traditional) transfer portal path to college success. He was selected with the No. 1 pick and, within two years, brought the Bengals to the Super Bowl. Could he be staring down his successor in this game? Jayden Daniels was similarly talented, and while he started playing much earlier in his college career, it wasn’t until he got to LSU that he found the right combination of staff, technology and surrounding roster to help him truly blossom at the position. Maybe this will not be a great game, per se, but it will be a good time for us to take the temperature of Daniels’s season against a good defense, Burrow’s season amid recovery from wrist surgery and the inherent value we can place on one really, really good college season from a quarterback after a larger sample size that didn’t necessarily reflect that talent level.

5. New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys (Week 4, Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET)

Once a year, we get a Giants-Cowboys game that, at least for one second, feels important before one or both teams fall off the map. It’s one of the league’s easiest sells, a baked-in rivalry between two storied franchises that boast sizable fan bases. But I do think that one of these teams (Dallas) is clearly on the downslope, having done nothing this offseason to improve its prospects from a year ago, and the other (New York) is in the midst of a pragmatic rebuild.

Here’s my thought: After the Cowboys slaughtered the Giants 40–0 last year on the opening Sunday night, thanks to dreadful weather and a massive disparity between New York’s protection issues and Dallas’s stellar pass rush (Daniel Jones was sacked a startling seven times), this year we could be in for a bit of a reversal. The Giants acquired Brian Burns this offseason while Dallas shed its most-tenured offensive lineman in favor of a high-upside project pick in the back end of the first round. Could we see a window into the Giants’ usage of Burns against a developmental offensive lineman, and Dak Prescott in a situation where he’s similarly stressed? This game could be a real catalyst for Dallas’s season at large, one in which the Cowboys are eyeing up Prescott potentially hitting free agency while two of their most high-profile nonquarterbacks (CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons) prepare for significant, team-altering paydays. Despite the Jones family’s attempts to sidestep this story line, optics are certainly not on their side.

6. Indianapolis Colts at Houston Texans (Week 8, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET)

A head injury to Anthony Richardson robbed us of the true potential of a showdown with fellow AFC South rookie C.J. Stroud in Week 2 last year, and Richardson was eventually lost for the season a few weeks later. Stroud was far and away the best rookie quarterback in the NFL last year, and he has set the stage for a highly-anticipated second season. But I feel like Richardson and coach Shane Steichen get lost in the shuffle a little bit. The Colts nearly made the playoffs with Gardner Minshew. In parts of four games last year, Richardson threw for three touchdowns against one interception, and rushed for over 100 yards and four more touchdowns. While this is impossible to debate now, I do think there’s a legitimate case to be made that, had Richardson remained healthy, the Colts not only would have reached the postseason, but Richardson would have made a run at Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Stroud clearly has more tools as a quarterback than Richardson, but Richardson had more avenues toward points (some of which eventually cost him after accumulating a good deal of hard hits). This is a pretty surface-level analysis, but the Texans give me 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars vibes and will play a difficult schedule. After the bye last year, the Texans faced the Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Joe Burrow–less Cincinnati Bengals, Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals in Murray’s second game back, Jaguars, Denver Broncos, New York Jets, Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns, the Titans again and the Colts. The Texans lost to the two best teams during that stretch—Cleveland and Jacksonville—and most of the other wins against equal or inferior talent were one-score games. That doesn’t take away at all from how incredible Stroud was. Hear me when I say that. However, I do think that Stroud’s incredible play can force us to take our eye off the ball when critically thinking about this team and this division.

These teams also meet in Week 1, but I’m picking the second game to give Richardson a few more starts under his belt, as well a chance to hopefully prove he can stay healthier than he did last year. 

7. Seattle Seahawks vs. Los Angeles Rams (Week 9, Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)

I wrote a handful of times during the coaching search process that the Seahawks were going to direct their focus away from Dan Quinn. At  the time, however, the common thought was that the regime wanted to push for an offensive-minded head coach to compete with Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay in the NFC West. Instead, Seattle opted for one of the hottest defensive-minded coaches on the market in Mike Macdonald, and supplemented Macdonald with a really intriguing 1–2 punch of offensive coaches in Ryan Grubb and Jake Peetz. Peetz was on our future NFL head coaches list last year and we also wrote about his niche role in developing Puka Nacua. Anyway, back to the pont. Macdonald versus McVay in Seattle is going to be an important measuring stick game for the Seahawks moving forward, as this will be the standard against which Macdonald will be judged during his tenure.

Last year, the Baltimore Ravens, with Macdonald at DC, beat the Rams 37–31, though Baltimore had a fairly strong track record against teams led by coaches from the McVay and Shanahan trees. The Ravens were 2–0 against Zac Taylor’s Bengals, throttled Mike McDaniel and the Miami Dolphins, held the Houston Texans under 10 points in the season opener and then bullied them again in the playoffs.

Again, this may not be a game that you circle on your calendar, but it is going to help tell the story of a division for the foreseeable future. The choice for Pete Carroll’s successor was a major one for the Seahawks, and now they’ll get a close look at whether a formidable defense is capable of staying competitive with these teams under the right circumstances.

8. Buffalo Bills vs. Kansas City Chiefs (Week 11, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET)

I want to see what the Bills look like in the midst of the slog. I disagreed with offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey’s firing last year, not because of a specific schematic reason but because I felt Dorsey’s struggles were for good reason—namely keeping Josh Allen from sustaining too many big hits. If I understood it correctly, there was definitely a kind of ideological tug of war in the building on that front, and the team seemed to want a more sustainable Allen plan … until it did not. All of Allen’s most prolific rushing games came after the appointment of Joe Brady as offensive coordinator, with Allen posting double-digit carries three times between December 10 and the end of the regular season. That’s great because Allen carrying the football breaks open a defense and forces more defenders to commit to the possibility that Allen will run. However, the downside is also clear. Will there be a renewed effort to keep Allen out of harm’s way when it was evident last year that defenses are getting much better at finding different ways to keep him in the pocket and punish him for leaving? Look for a moment at this year’s defensive tackle draft class, for example. While 40 times are a horrible measure of speed, Byron Murphy II ran a 4.87 40-yard dash (check it out here). That was about a tenth of a second slower than Allen. Teams are better equipped to spy Allen with almost anyone, and the larger and more physical those players are, the more potential Allen has for taking hits that are going to derail Buffalo’s season.

This is where the wide receiver question gets interesting too. By trying to build a more organic corps around Allen’s skill set and letting go of game breakers such as Stefon Diggs, who could probably elevate most quarterbacks in the immediate term, the Bills are tying themselves tighter to the idea that Allen will be in top shape for most games. But, by allowing Allen to run, they are also diminishing that possibility.

This adds a subplot to the obvious intrigue that is baked into this rivalry (three playoff meetings in four years). We’d watch a Chiefs-Bills game no matter what, but it’s also worth seeing where Allen is physically and how the offense has transformed around him. 

9. Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers (Week 11, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET)

To me, this is a fun opportunity not only to talk about Caleb Williams and what he’s capable of, but one of the biggest personnel decisions Matt LaFleur has made during his time as coach of the Packers. Defensive coordinator has always been his Achilles heel, from Mike Pettine to Joe Barry, but I’ve always respected LaFleur’s mindset and willingness to think outside the box. I was hoping that the Carolina Panthers would allow their DC, Ejiro Evero, to hit the market this offseason after they hired Dave Canales, so that Evero could work for a contender and truly showcase his ability. I also wish LaFleur had gotten his wish and nabbed former Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard back when there was some mutual interest, before the hiring of Barry in 2021. But former Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley is also an outside-the-box hire with intimate knowledge of how to maximize lesser talent to combat speed-oriented college offenses. There have been a handful of really good defensive coaches who have come through BC, such as Tem Lukabu, who works with Evero in Carolina as a linebackers coach. There’s good stuff happening there. The game at Lambeau Field will be a big moment for both Williams and Hafley. For the Bears’ rookie quarterback, we’ll get to see how he will fare against a divisional opponent that should remain the class of the NFC North for the foreseeable future. For Green Bay’s new DC, we’ll see how his recent college experience can inform the Packers on how to handle players like Williams, or any number of rookie quarterbacks populating the NFL.

10. Detroit Lions vs. Chicago Bears (Week 13, Thursday, 12:30 p.m. ET)

Thanksgiving 2023 was truly the first time in years that the Lions were relevant beyond fantasy or gambling purposes, and not a blight on the holiday lineup. This year, I could very easily imagine Detroit being the draw above a Cowboys team that did little to fortify itself this offseason. Detroit has been embracing its role as a trendy Super Bowl pick and has done a great job of developing stars beyond its charismatic head coach, who kept the team afloat during its leaner years.

Ideally, this game will come at a point when the Lions are healthy and thriving, having just paid Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Penei Sewell. One could imagine Jahmyr Gibbs leading the NFL in rushing and a defense with more teeth than the up-and-down unit we saw a year ago. Thanksgiving will, for better or worse, be a time when America collectively logs on to check in on the status of the team and we’ll narrativize either an incredible success story—buoyed by the overwhelming support the city received while hosting the draft back in April—or lament what could have been. This is emblematic of the unforgiving nature of the NFL. You are a plucky underdog until the team ripens in the eyes of most. Regardless of whether the team is actually ready to make a legitimate championship run or not matters little. Failing to live up to this nebulous top billing is a dagger. We’ve seen the Los Angeles Chargers and New York Jets in recent years fall into this snakepit.

The Lions’ defense, specifically, will be the focus for those who remember that, out of Detroit’s seven worst performances against the pass, six of them came after Week 10. It’s no secret why the team went cornerback-cornerback in the first two rounds of the draft, and one would hope that by now, facing Caleb Williams at quarterback, they can showcase a more sustainable and competent secondary that can withstand the rigors of a playoff run.

11. Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals (Week 13, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET)

I don’t want my words to get conflated here. Russell Wilson is one of the most-sacked quarterbacks of all time, having been taken down only 38 fewer times than Tom Brady, who played until he was 45 years old. He is tough. But I think many quarterbacks can attest to a marked difference between playing in a normal game and playing the position in an intra–AFC North matchup, which are some of the most violent and hard-hitting games in the NFL. One of the reasons Wilson’s career stalled in Denver is because of his changing body type and desire to play a less physical game with a faster snap-to-throw time. The issue, of course, is that Wilson sees the field differently and needs to extend plays in order to utilize the best of his skill set. 

The Steelers don’t have a division game until Week 11, when they play four in a row—which, by the way, is completely absurd. So, by the time this game against Cincinnati is over, the third of four, we will have had a sample size of Wilson against all three of his divisional opponents in a very truncated window. To me, it’s unfair to peg his first divisional game as the one to watch, because any quarterback can look like Buddy the Elf at the Jack in the Box station, but by the time he spends an offseason with a Steelers defense, and faces Myles Garrett, Justin Madubuike and Lou Anarumo’s unit at least one time each, we’ll see if he becomes calloused enough to handle the division. The reality is that a hybrid of Wilson’s old style and wishes for himself as a quarterback with a faster release could work in the right scheme if he learns to play against these defenses.

12a. Kansas City Chiefs at Pittsburgh Steelers (Week 17, Wednesday, 1:00 p.m. ET)

12b. Baltimore Ravens at Los Angeles Chargers (Week 12, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET)

Chiefs-Steelers is a game that you will only see if you purchase Netflix, or get the person you steal it from to update their sharing preferences and fill in that special code when prompted via text message. And why are we talking about the HarBowl at the same time when TAYLOR SWIFT AND NETFLIX ARE INVOLVED!? Just as you thought, here’s our chance to talk about … special teams. I circled the Chiefs and Steelers even before the league dropped this game onto Christmas Day, because both of these teams made very specific position upgrades this offseason to address the kickoff rule changes. Chiefs rookie receiver Xavier Worthy is an electric punt returner who could shine under this format, and the Steelers added Cordarrelle Patterson and Justin Fields, both of whom could factor into the return game. The Chiefs’ Dave Toub is one of the best and longest-tenured special teams coaches in the NFL, and if anyone is going to have a leg up on the rule changes, it’s him.

Speaking of which, the Harbaugh Bowl is not just a battle between brothers. It’s a matchup between some of the best special teams minds in the NFL. John Harbaugh and his special teams coordinator, Chris Horton—who could make the jump from special teams to head coach, just like Harbaugh himself once did—are elite thinkers when it comes to different facets of the game, and could be early pioneers when it comes to the new return rules. The same can be said for Ryan Ficken, a bit of a hidden gem when it comes to special teams coaches but one who is highly revered. Last year, amid a lost season for the Chargers, Ficken led the fifth-best unit in the NFL according to the prestigious Rick Gosselin special teams rankings. He did that with a roster that was already too thin to support a half-decent team, which means the special teams leftovers can be meager.

P.S. Editor Mitch Goldich did a phenomenal job reporting on the demise of the kickoff return and the legend of Devin Hester in 2022. Some good preemptive reading for the special teams nuts out there.

13. Miami Dolphins at New York Jets (Week 18, Saturday/Sunday, time TBD)

For the better part of each of Mike McDaniel’s two seasons, the Dolphins have started out hot and suffered losing streaks down the stretch. My former editor, the esteemed Gary Gramling, was one of the first people to discuss the impact this offense has on the players. I reached out to a sports science professional last season and was showing him some clips of the Tyreek Hill presnap sprint motions. We had an interesting discussion about the impact of constant stop-start sprinting on the body and how adding that presnap, albeit super creative, exacerbates the unnatural load one already takes on their body during a football season. The Dolphins’ speed is an absolute killer, but can they sustain it and foster it, and keep players collectively healthy enough for it to matter in the playoffs when games often come down to a far more granular trench battle? I don’t think there should be a question about McDaniel getting a second contract with the Dolphins. However, I’m not the one making those decisions.

Depending on how much this game matters to both teams, this could be the game in which we’ll know a lot about Miami’s near future. This is a game where we’ll see how the health of the Dolphins’ offense is faring, and whether we can make some assumptions about what they’ll need to change with the benefit of a large enough sample size.