The Las Vegas Raiders haven't had a lot of things during the 2025 NFL season. A good offensive line, a productive quarterback, a head coach who understands the position that the team is in, an edge rusher opposite Maxx Crosby, a strong rushing attack, good coordinators. The list goes on.
Las Vegas was fortunate to steal a Week 1 win against the New England Patriots before they figured things out. Otherwise, the Raiders would only have a single victory on their résumé, which came all the way back in mid-October before the bye.
But this Sunday, in Week 15, as they head to the East Coast to take on the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, Las Vegas will have one positive thing. It's not much, but it is the only time all season that the Raiders will have a rest advantage in a game.
Raiders finally have their first rest advantage of season vs. Eagles
When the NFL schedule came out back in May, the initial reports were positive. Not only did the Raiders get to play the fourth-place teams from other divisions, but they had the lowly AFC South and a mixed bag of an NFC East on the docket, in addition to their typical AFC West slate.
Of course, the AFC South now has three teams contending for a playoff spot, but regardless, this schedule was seen as a major advantage for Las Vegas. Until Sharp Football Analysis did a deeper dive and showed how the NFL screwed the Raiders by giving them unbelievable rest disadvantages.
Not only did the Silver and Black have the worst rest disadvantage in the league, but by a wide margin. The Raiders were set to be down 19 total days of rest compared to their foes, the next lowest being down 14 days. At the top was the Detroit Lions with a 13-day edge. A 32-day difference. A month.
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Las Vegas had a league-worst six games on the schedule with a rest disadvantage, and they were the only team to have just a single game with a rest edge. That game is this Sunday against the Eagles, as the Raiders played on Sunday in Week 14, but Philly played on Monday Night Football.
This advantage, of course, is negated a bit by the fact that Las Vegas has to fly to the Eastern Time Zone and play in the early slot in a mid-December game that could bring freezing temperatures or snow. I'm sure the NFL made this calculated decision not to give the Raiders too much of an edge.
The Eagles are a formidable enough opponent as is, and having another day to prepare and recover from injury is still a benefit. But not as much as playing at home in the elements against a team traveling across three time zones for a Sunday morning game. But we'll take what we can get.