The Chargers 2025 schedule is officially set.

Chargers.com recently caught up with Onnie Bose, the NFL Vice President of Scheduling, to get an inside look at how the 2025 edition of the Bolts schedule came to be.

Here's our 1-on-1 conversation with Bose:

Let's start with Week 1 in Brazil. Why were the Chargers tabbed to play in São Paulo?

"Sure. Our international team does a great job of managing the clubs. And when we went to the 17-game season, the years when a conference has the extra home game, the ninth home game, once in a eight-year cycle every team would go play internationally as the designated team. We're managing through that cycle, it's an AFC year and there's a handful of teams that have not done this as the designated team. The Chargers were on the table and eligible to go to Brazil but it's always a conversation with the club. The Chargers are a playoff team with star power who have good matchups, good opponents this year. It's a little bit at the discretion of the teams the Chargers protect but it made sense for us."

And why were the Chiefs selected as the Week 1 opponent?

"That was a natural fit. There were other options we considered, but pretty quickly it was going to work out. It's a really attractive matchup in a weekend of a lot of big matchups, big divisional games. You put that on an international stage and on YouTube, on a Friday night, and we're pretty excited about it."

Most teams usually get a bye or a home game after playing internationally. The Chargers are on the road in Las Vegas in Week 2. How did it fall that way?

"100 percent, we look to bring a team home after an international trip. Obviously, you're not going to have a bye in Week 2, but the problem was that SoFi [Stadium] was booked with a concert. There was a challenge there so we were trying to get them as close a road game as possible. The Raiders also had a block [a boxing match] but it's really only over Saturday and Sunday so we were able to free up Monday night. It's a road game but a close game coming back from Brazil, so overall a pretty solid outcome with the extra day of rest."

Overall, if you include the Brazil game, the Chargers are in five standalone games. What does the NFL like about the Bolts to put them in that many primetime games?

"Look, we like the team, we like that they're in the playoffs. They're on an upward trajectory and [Justin] Herbert is one of our marquee quarterbacks. He's still got that leap to make so we're always looking for that. Obviously, it's Year 2 of Jim Harbaugh and we really want to see his program and what he's put into it. We are doing this post-draft so there's some draft picks we feel like can be impactful. And then the other piece is the opponents. We talked about the first two, but if you look at those games, there's the Eagles, the Vikings, the Steelers [at home]. Those are all really good matchups, all playoff teams playing each other. We have a lot of primetime games and a lot of windows to populate. When you have a team like the Chargers that can hold their own, you feel great about the opportunity to put them in there."

The Chargers will play three straight AFC West games to open a season for the first time since 1988. Is that just the way things fell this year?

"That's a quirk. We know the backstory of those first two games. But the Broncos fell in there just as a quirk of this particular schedule. I think I could go back in the stack for other schedules we were looking at and it's entirely possible it was not the Broncos in there. The winning schedule happened to have them in there. It's peculiar but it's not not allowed. Others teams have had that in a weird way, too."

The Chargers have three long road trips to New York, Miami and Jacksonville ... do you try to break those up as much as possible?

"Yes, we do. We do have teams that try to pair them [which the Chargers did in 2024]. But this year, there is a Giants and then home and then Miami. You want to avoid that but sometimes it doesn't fall in that way. We are cognizant of that and would never send you on back-to-back road trips unless you asked for it."

The Chargers will host the Vikings on Thursday Night Football in Week 8. What was the draw behind that primetime matchup?

"We like it as two playoff teams. Thursday nights are constrained because you can't play a three-time zone game but you can play a two-time zone game. So, that's a benefit of an NFC North team that won 14 games last year. There's also the interest of hopefully it's J.J. [McCarthy] playing against his college coach when they won a championship together. That's a big storyline and we always love storylines."

The Chargers have never played the Vikings and Eagles in primetime before this season. Is the NFL aware of that when making a schedule?

"It's how it breaks. We look at it as opponents. That Eagles game is one we saw in a lot of places. We didn't want it to fall at 4:05 p.m. against a big doubleheader because it's a really big game and big markets. Sometimes we saw it as part of the doubleheader or on a Saturday. But this was a game that was just really strong and we liked it in a lot of places we saw it."

The Chargers have a Week 12 bye after two straight Week 5 byes. Do teams give you any input on when they want that?

"Teams can probably put something in their form to remind us they had a Week 5 bye the last two years. We do try to keep track of that. If it becomes a pattern then we're going to look at it. With the expanded schedule now we're doing byes in Weeks 13 and 14. Depending on your team, your schedule, your roster, teams may love that. But other teams with a younger quarterback may think that's way too late. So that's a new data set we're keeping track of."

The Chargers host the Texans in Week 17. How much does the league revel in playoff rematches from a season ago?

"We're aware of it. That Texans game could be on a Saturday down the line because it's two playoff teams in a rematch. That's a game that we hope, knock on wood, has playoff implications a few months from now. We don't overly schedule those, maybe a championship game rematch is big on the scale, but for two teams we still expect to be competitive this year, having them late means there's a lot to like."

Final question for you is about Week 18 is Denver. Any chance the league hopes that game is flexed with plenty to play for?

"Game 272 ideally is a win-and-in game, whether that's truly win and in the playoffs and the loser is not. Or sometimes, like Lions and Vikings last year, one wins the division and the other is a Wild Card. Absolutely a possibility that there could be a lot of the line. The other window we have, other than the Sunday later afternoon window, is the Saturday standalone games. Chargers-Broncos, if that is for the division or potentially a game that has high playoff implications, that game feels like there could be a lot at stake there."