On Thursday, the NFL announced the regular-season schedule for the 2026 season, which kicks off on Wednesday night, September 9, in Seattle when the world-champion Seahawks face the New England Patriots, in a rematch of Super Bowl LX.
The 2026 NFL schedule will feature each team playing 17 regular-season games and three preseason games for the sixth consecutive year.
On Thursday, September 10 (8:35 p.m. ET, Netflix), the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers will meet at Melbourne Cricket Ground, in the first-ever regular-season NFL game to be played in Australia.
Week 1 continues on Sunday, September 13, with two games in the 1 p.m. ET window featuring 2025 playoff teams: the Carolina Panthers host the Chicago Bears (FOX), and the Buffalo Bills visit the Houston Texans (CBS). The late window on Kickoff Weekend features divisional matchups. On CBS at 4:25 p.m. ET, Green Bay visits Minnesota in an NFC North showdown, while FOX at 4:25 p.m. ET features an NFC East matchup between Washington and Philadelphia.
Later that day, NBC’s Sunday Night Football features Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys visiting Jaxon Dart and the New York Giants (8:20 p.m. ET) in an NFC East showdown. NBC will televise one game each Sunday night in Weeks 1-17, as well as feature Kansas City at Buffalo (8:20 p.m. ET) on Thanksgiving night and one game at 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, January 2, from a pool of four designated Week 17 Saturday games.
Kickoff Weekend concludes on Monday, September 14, with ESPN’s Monday Night Football, featuring the Denver Broncos visiting the Kansas City Chiefs (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC). ESPN will televise one game each Monday night in Weeks 1-17.
Week 18:
Additionally, ESPN/ABC will air two games with playoff implications on the Saturday of Week 18, January 9, at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET. These games will be selected at the conclusion of Week 17. There will be no Monday night game on the final regular-season weekend (Week 18).
Thursday Night Football:
Thursday Night Football will air exclusively on Prime Video, kicking off its slate in Week 2 with Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills hosting Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions (8:15 p.m. ET) to open the new Highmark Stadium. Prime Video will broadcast 15 Thursday Night Football games between Weeks 2-17 (excluding Thanksgiving night) and exclusively stream the fourth annual NFL Black Friday game when the Pittsburgh Steelers host the Denver Broncos in Week 12 (3 p.m. ET).
Netflix, along with streaming the first-ever regular-season game played in Australia in Week 1, will stream the first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game when Green Bay visits the Los Angeles Rams on Wednesday, November 25 (8 p.m. ET) in Week 12. Additionally, for the third consecutive season, Netflix will stream two NFL games on Christmas Day in Week 16: the Green Bay Packers visiting the Chicago Bears (1 p.m. ET) and the Denver Broncos hosting the Buffalo Bills (4:30 p.m. ET).
Peacock will exclusively stream an NFL regular-season game for the fourth consecutive season, with the matchup in primetime on Saturday, January 2, 2027. The game will be selected from the pool of four designated Week 17 Saturday games.
International Games:
The NFL schedule features nine international games, the most ever in a season, with five of the games exclusively televised on NFL Network. Along with three games in the UK and returning to Madrid, Mexico City, and Munich, the NFL will play the first regular season game in three new cities in 2026 – Melbourne (Australia), Paris (France), and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
The international slate begins in Week 1 in Australia with the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco (8:35 p.m. ET, Netflix). It follows with games in five consecutive weeks, beginning in Week 3 with the first-ever regular-season game in Rio de Janeiro at Maracanã Stadium with the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys (Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS).
The first two weeks at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London will feature Indianapolis and Washington (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network) in Week 4 and Philadelphia and Jacksonville (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network) in Week 5. The London action shifts to Wembley Stadium in Week 6, when the Jacksonville Jaguars will play Houston (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network).
In Week 7, as the league continues to focus on global growth efforts and expanding the international games slate to more countries around the world, the NFL will play the first-ever regular-season game in France at the Stade de France, the country’s national stadium, as New Orleans and Pittsburgh (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network) will meet in the NFL Paris Game presented by American Express.
In Week 9, the NFL travels to Madrid, Spain, for the second-consecutive season in a matchup between Atlanta and Cincinnati (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network) at the Bernabéu Stadium, home to Real Madrid C.F. The following week, as part of the league’s commitment to playing regular-season games in Germany, the NFL will return to Munich as New England meets Detroit (Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, FOX) at the FC Bayern Munich Stadium.
The international schedule will conclude in Week 11 with the first game in Mexico City since 2022, when San Francisco takes on Minnesota (Sunday night, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC) at Estadio Banorte.
Thanksgiving Day:
The NFL Thanksgiving Games presented by American Express will feature a tripleheader on Thursday, November 26. The first game will match a pair of NFC North foes, as the Bears travel to Detroit to face the Lions (1 p.m. ET, CBS). At 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX, the Philadelphia Eagles will visit the Dallas Cowboys in an NFC East matchup, followed by Kansas City and Buffalo on NBC (8:20 p.m. ET) to close out the Thanksgiving Day festivities.
Flex Scheduling:
The NFL will continue to use “flexible scheduling” this season to ensure exciting, meaningful games are available to the largest number of fans.
As in prior seasons, for Week 18, the final weekend of the season, the scheduling of the Saturday, Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night games are not assigned. In Week 18, three games will be played on Saturday (1 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. ET, and 8 p.m. ET), with the remaining games on Sunday afternoon (1 p.m. ET and 4:25 p.m. ET) and one matchup on Sunday night (8:20 p.m. ET). Specific dates, start times, and networks for Week 18 matchups will be determined and announced after Week 17.
Playoffs:
Wild Card Weekend for the 2026 season will feature six games, starting on Saturday, January 16.
Wild Card winners join the top seeds in each conference in the Divisional Playoffs, on Saturday and Sunday, January 23-24.
The AFC and NFC Championship Games will be played on Sunday, January 31.
The winners meet two weeks later on Sunday, February 14, in Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California (ESPN), marking the ninth time the league’s final game will be played in Los Angeles.
