Patriots will not play Dublin game in 2025
The Patriots have a two-year running streak of playing a regular season game abroad. In 2023, they played the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany, and in 2024, they played the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.
Although the streak continuing cannot be completely ruled out, Mike Reiss of ESPN points out that New England will not be playing the Steelers in Dublin. The Steelers will host the inaugural game in Ireland, but the Patriots are scheduled to play Pittsburgh in Foxborough.
With that announcement, the odds the Pats will be playing in Europe slightly dwindle, so the question arises, what are the chances the Patriots will have to go over the pond for the third straight year?
Disregarding Ireland, the NFL will host five games abroad in 2025, those games will be hosted by the Browns, Jets, Jaguars, Colts, and Dolphins — games will be played in London (3), Berlin (1), and Madrid (1).
The Patriots will play road games against both the Jets and Dolphins, so the Patriots playing an international game cannot be entirely ruled out; however, the fact that the Jets and Dolphins are division rivals may make it less likely that the NFL will designate those games to be abroad.
Although it is not unheard of for the NFL to have division rivals play each other internationally, it is not necessarily a common occurrence. Only 10 of the 55 NFL games played abroad have been between division rivals. The last one was in 2022, a game in Mexico between the Cardinals and 49ers.
It’s yet to be seen if the streak of international games will continue for the Patriots. But as it stands, based on the amount of times the NFL has division rivals have played abroad, they have about a 36 percent chance at going overseas once again to play Miami or New York.
All of this is to say, the Patriots will not play in Ireland, but it is still possible they will make a trip to London or Madrid in 2025.
Luke Graham is a digital sports content co-op for 98.5 the Sports Hub. He is currently a sophomore communications student at Northeastern University. Follow him on X @LukeGraham05.
