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Other winnable games depend heavily on what the opponents look like. Those could include the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Las Vegas Raiders, all of whom have either quarterback uncertainty or younger QBs playing.

The NFL released its schedule for the 2026 season on Thursday, and five teams emerged without having a single primetime game next season.

New England Patriots at Seattle Seahawks, Week 1 The NFL could not have scripted a louder opening act. The defending champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl LX rematch instantly injects playoff intensity into Week 1. NBC pushed the “run it back” angle hard, and history says title-game rematches in openers tend to shape the league’s early hierarchy.

"We always say you play your way into prime-time ... If the Raiders have a better than we thought, unexpected season, that's what flexible scheduling is for down the stretch ... If they're relevant, we'll find a way to get their games on national television."

This November, Brady will return to the familiar territory of Foxborough, Mass., this time as a Fox Sports broadcaster. Looking at the just-released Patriots 2026 schedule, the team has a Week 9 matchup against the Green Bay Packers scheduled for No. 8 at 4:25 p.m. ET, and it will air on Fox.

But this rivalry suddenly has modern relevance again. Caleb Williams has accelerated Chicago’s rebuild faster than expected, while Green Bay is trying to cement Jordan Love as the NFC North’s long-term kingpin. And by late December, this game could swing the division, shape playoff seeding, and even feed MVP conversations. That is exactly what the NFL wanted when it built its Christmas tripleheader around playoff-rematch energy.

“We’re probably stretched, arguably as thin as we can be, for Sunday afternoon,” said Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning. “One of the things we liked about this schedule was the fact that I think we’re still OK for CBS and Fox on Sunday afternoon. We’re still going to be able to make a half-decent map out of the 1 p.m. window.”

The Chicago Bears were one of the biggest beneficiaries after last season’s rise under Caleb Williams, as were the New England Patriots under Drake Maye, with each team receiving five prime-time games.

The league is aggressively packaging rivalry games and postseason rematches into “event windows” that feel closer to playoff broadcasts than regular-season inventory.

Internationally, the NFL reached another milestone with a record nine games across four continents and seven countries, including first-time visits to Australia and France. The result is a 2026 slate loaded with games that immediately become appointment television.

The hidden storyline is pressure. Seattle now has to prove its championship wasn’t a one-year spike under Mike Macdonald, while New England enters revenge territory with Drake Maye expected to take another leap.

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants, Week 1 "Sunday Night Football" No rivalry gets recycled more aggressively than Dallas Cowboys versus New York Giants, but the NFL keeps returning to it because the ratings machine never cools. This is reportedly the eighth time in 15 seasons these teams have opened against each other, and now it comes with the debut of John Harbaugh’s Giants era under the Sunday night spotlight.