The New England Patriots need all the help they can get as they attempt to move past back-to-back four-win seasons and become, once again, a force in the NFL.

While no one is predicting championship runs any time in the next year or two for the six-time Super Bowl winning franchise, the Patriots are expected to show considerable improvement over the last two seasons.

A prediction by USA Today has the Patriots winning eight games and losing nine — a mark that would equal New England’s record in the 2022 season.

Oddsmakers see the Patriots season in similar fashion. ESPNBET sets the Patriots win total, for over-under betting purposes, at 7.5.

A range of factors go into the increased expectations for the Patriots. A new head coach, Mike Vrabel, and a new coaching staff, a widely-praised draft and highly-rated crop of free agent signings have all combined two create a new feeling of optimism around One Patriot Place ahead of the 2025 season.

The NFL’s Big Gift to the 2025 Patriots

This week the NFL made an announcement that only pumps up the optimism about the Patriots’ season. On Tuesday, one day ahead of the league’s official release of its full schedule, the NFL released its slate of international games — and the Patriots are not on it.

After back-to-back years of international travel, the Patriots can stay stateside in 2025, sparing them the scheduling disruptions and stressful time zone shifts that come with fulfilling their obligations as part of the NFL’s aggressive push into overseas markets.

But that’s not all the good news when it comes to the Patriots travel schedule.

Not only do the Patriots have the second-easiest strength of schedule in 2025, according to Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis. According to Kent Weyrauch of Fantasy Pros, the Patriots will travel fewer miles than all but four other NFL teams.

And no other team has the combination of low strength of schedule and minimal travel that the Patriots have been gifted by the NFL this year.

The Patriots will travel a total of just over 10,000 miles to play their road games in 2025. Only the Cincinnati Bengals will travel fewer than 10,000 miles, while the Baltimore Ravens and New England’s divisional rival the Buffalo Bills will travel almost exactly 10,000.

The Detroit Lions also travel slightly over 10,000 miles, approximately the same as the Patriots. But all four of those other low-level teams have significantly tougher schedules of opponents to get through.

Vikings Victimized by NFL Schedule-Makers

The lack of overseas games on the Patriots schedule of course helps to keep their travel burden light. In all, 13 of the NFL’s 32 teams will need to travel overseas at least once.

The Minnesota Vikings are the most severely victimized by the schedule-makers. They become the first NFL team to play back-to-back overseas games in two separate countries.

The Vikings play in Dublin, Ireland, against the Pittsburgh Steelers on September 28, then again on October 5 in London, England, where they will face the Cleveland Browns.

“We’ve talked about this strength of schedule. The Patriots have one of the easiest going into this 2025 season. That’s first and foremost,” said “Aaron,” host of the Sports Talk Patriots podcast on Tuesday. “But the thing that people aren’t talking about as much is the strength and schedule paired with the miles traveled.”

The NFL has “absolutely gifted” the Patriots, the podcast host said, with its configuration of the 2025 schedule.