The NFL will play six days a week in 2026, which is the second time in the last three years.
Of the 272 regular season games, 223 were played on Sunday schedules. The 2026 schedule also includes two Wednesday games (early and the day before Thanksgiving), four Friday games (Black Friday and Christmas) and seven Saturday games (the two weeks before Christmas, and TBD games in the final three weeks of the season). The league will play 17 games on Monday and 19 games on Thursday.
The season It starts on Wednesday By A Last season’s Super Bowl match. The last time the NFL started the season on a day other than Thursday was in 2018. In 2012, it was moved to Wednesday to avoid overlapping with then-President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. Since then, the league has hosted three more Wednesday games: two at Christmas 2024 and one in 2020 that was rescheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year’s Wednesday start is due to scheduling constraints and Labor Day falling on the last possible day on the calendar. The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 prohibits NFL games from being broadcast on any Friday or Saturday between the second Friday in September and the second Saturday in December to prevent direct competition from high school and college football games. The NFL season usually starts on the weekend after Labor Day.
The biggest games on the 2026 NFL calendar
Jordan Rodriguez
For the past two years, Labor Day has fallen earlier on the calendar, allowing the NFL to host opening-week international games on Friday and avoid the SBA blackout period. This year on Labor Day, September 7, the NFL could not host a Week 1 game on Friday, the New England Patriots’ season opener against the Seattle Seahawks until Wednesday and the San Francisco 49ers-Los Angeles Rams game in Melbourne, Australia until Thursday in the United States (the game starts Friday morning in Australia).
In addition, the N.L.A. The Rams host the Green Bay Packers before Thanksgiving in a new window.
In recent years, the NFL has experimented with Monday night doubleheaders, some airing separately and others airing at the same time. In March, NFL Executive Vice President of Media Distribution Hans Schroeder said The league was pulling back on the experiment. But it continues to explore other unusual time slots, such as Thanksgiving Eve.
The teams with the most games other than Sunday are the Seahawks, Rams, Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears with six each. Conversely, five teams are scheduled to play only on Sunday, including the Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Tennessee Titans, Las Vegas Raiders and Arizona Cardinals.
The regular season begins on September 9 and ends on January 10, 2027.
The wild-card round of the playoffs is January 16-18, 2027, followed by the divisional round on January 23-24, 2027. The conference championships are scheduled for January 31, 2027.
Super Bowl LXI is scheduled for February 14, 2027 at Sophie Stadium. The Valentine’s Day finish is the deadliest end to a season in NFL history, with a 2021 schedule expansion and a late Labor Day result.
