The 2025/26 NFL schedule begins on September 4 with Week 1. As usual, the reigning Super Bowl champions will play the opening game at home. That’s the Philadelphia Eagles. Their opponents are the Dallas Cowboys.
What does the 2025/26 NFL schedule look like?
All games, including the International Games, the NFL Berlin 2025 game, the Thanksgiving and Christmas games, and an explanation of the rather complicated NFL schedule structure.
NFL schedule 2025 – Week 1 dates
NFL schedule Week 1
The Philadelphia Eagles will kick off Week 1 of the 2025 NFL schedule in the Thursday Night Game on Thursday night (September 5, 2:15 a.m. German time). Their opponents are the Dallas Cowboys.
Friday sees the first international game of the season on the NFL schedule. In the night from Friday to Saturday (September 6, 1:00 a.m. German time), the Los Angeles Chargers are in action. The Kansas City Chiefs travel to Brazil for the “Sao Paulo Game.”
Sunday in Week 1 will then proceed as usual. There will be eight games at 7:00 p.m. simultaneously. After that, four games will be played simultaneously starting at 10:00 p.m.
In the Sunday Night Game, the Baltimore Ravens will visit the Buffalo Bills. On Tuesday night, the Monday Night Game between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings will follow on the 2025 NFL schedule for Week 1.
NFL schedule 2025 – all regular season dates
The 2025/26 NFL schedule begins on September 4 with Week 1. The final round of the NFL regular season schedule will take place on the weekend of January 1-7.
The start of the NFL playoffs is scheduled for January 10 to 14. Three rounds remain until the grand finale.
Super Bowl LX – the glamorous final game of the NFL championship – will take place on February 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
NFL schedule – dates for the 2025 International Games
The 2025/26 season will once again feature International Games – seven of them, in fact!
Three International Games will be held in London (Great Britain) in the 2025/26 season. There will be three more in Europe – one each in Berlin (Germany), Dublin (Ireland) and Madrid (Spain). And one will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – the only purpose-built NFL stadium outside the US – will host two international games this season. The third London game on the 2025 NFL schedule will be played at Wembley Stadium.
In Germany, Berlin is now up next after a game was played in Munich last year. Madrid and Dublin are new additions to the NFL International Games schedule. This will be the first time NFL games are played in Spain and Ireland.
And then, after its premiere last year, the NFL Sao Paulo Game will also be back on the 2025 NFL schedule. It will once again take place at the Corinthians Sao Paulo soccer stadium.
The International Games on the 2025 NFL schedule
Brazil Game:
- September 5: Los Angeles Chargers vs. Kansas City Chiefs (Corinthians Stadium)
Dublin Game:
- 28.9.: Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Minnesota Vikings (Croke Park)
London Games:
- 5.10.: Cleveland Browns vs. Minnesota Vikings (Tottenham Stadium)
- 12.10.: New York Jets vs. Denver Broncos (Tottenham Stadium)
- 19.10.: Jacksonville Jaguars vs. LA Rams (Wembley Stadium)
Berlin Game:
- 9.11.: Indianapolis Colts vs. Atlanta Falcons (Olympiastadion)
Madrid Game:
- 16.11.: Miami Dolphins vs. Washington Commanders (Santiago Bernabeu)
The home teams for this year’s International Games are:
Cleveland Browns and New York Jets will play at Tottenham Stadium, Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley. The Indianapolis Colts will be the “hosts” for Berlin. The Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers are the home teams for the Madrid and Dublin games on the 2025 NFL schedule.
The Los Angeles Chargers have their “home advantage” in Brazil.
View this post on Instagram
NFL 2025 Thanksgiving and Christmas schedule
The annual tripleheader on Thanksgiving (this season on November 27) will once again feature some big-name teams in the 2025 NFL schedule. It’s sure to be a holiday for football fans!
This season’s NFL schedule once again features three Thanksgiving games. In addition, there will certainly be another “Black Friday Game,” as there was for the first time last season.
Until now, Black Friday has been known primarily for shopping bargains. But since the 2023 season, the Friday after Thanksgiving has also gone down in history as an NFL game day for the first time.
NFL schedule for Christmas & New Year’s Eve 2025
In the 2023 season, three games were played on US Christmas Day, which was a Monday. These three games were among the five most-watched NFL games on Christmas Day since 1988.
The NFL therefore scheduled two games on Christmas Day in the previous season, even though December 25 was a Wednesday. This will probably be the case again in the 2025 NFL schedule.
This season, December 25 falls on a Thursday for the first time since the league expanded from 16 to 17 games in 2021. As a result, the league will hold Christmas games on Thursday for the first time, including two afternoon games and the regular Thursday Night Game.
Before 2021, Christmas Thursday usually fell on the last week of the regular season, when the league preferred not to schedule Thursday games that would give teams a competitive advantage because they had more rest time before the first round of the playoffs.
Which Christmas games are on the 2025 NFL schedule? One is Washington Commanders vs. Dallas Cowboys and the other is Kansas City Chiefs vs. Denver Broncos.
The format for the 2025/26 NFL schedule
The NFL schedule for the 2025/26 season will also consist of a total of 18 game days, with each team having one bye week. This means that each team will play 17 games during the season.
This is how the 17-game NFL schedule is created:
- The four teams in a division always play one home and one away game against each other ⇒ 6 games
- Each year, one team from a division plays against all four teams from another division in its own conference. (This means that all divisions in a conference are played every three years.) ⇒ 4 games
- After a 4-year rotation, each team plays once against all four teams in another division of the other conference. Two of these games are played at home and two away. ⇒ 4 games
- In addition, the NFL schedule includes games against teams in the same conference that finished in the same position in the table the previous year – one home game and one away game (except for the division against which the team is already playing based on the current NFL schedule). ⇒ 2 games
- The 17th game is against another team from the other conference that finished in the same position in its division. The division that the team is already playing against is excluded, and the remaining divisions are rotated. ⇒ 1 game
This NFL schedule guarantees that all teams play every other team at least once every four years and play at every other team’s stadium at least once every eight years.
