Regular season | |
---|---|
Duration | September 4, 2025 – January 4, 2026 |
Playoffs | |
Start date | January 10, 2026 |
Super Bowl LX | |
Date | February 8, 2026 |
Site | Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, California |
Pro Bowl | |
Date | February 1, 2026 |
Site | TBD |
The 2025 NFL season is scheduled to be the 106th season of the National Football League (NFL). The season is scheduled to begin on September 4, 2025, with the NFL Kickoff Game. The regular season is set to end on January 4, 2026.
The playoffs are then scheduled to start on January 10, and conclude with Super Bowl LX, the league's championship game, at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on February 8.
The 2025 NFL league year and trading period will start on March 12. On March 10, teams will be allowed to exercise options for 2025 on players with option clauses in their contracts, submit qualifying offers to their pending restricted free agents, and submit a Minimum Salary Tender to retain exclusive negotiating rights to their players with expiring 2024 contracts and fewer than three accrued seasons of free agent credit. Teams were required to be under the salary cap using the "top 51" definition (in which the 51 highest paid-players on the team's payroll must have a combined salary cap). On March 12, clubs will be allowed to contact and begin contract negotiations with players whose contracts had expired and thus became unrestricted free agents. [1]
C | Center | CB | Cornerback | DB | Defensive back | DE | Defensive end [a] | |||
DL | Defensive lineman | DT | Defensive tackle | FB | Fullback | FS | Free safety | |||
G | Guard [b] | K | Kicker [c] | KR | Kickoff returner | LB | Linebacker | |||
LS | Long snapper | MLB | Middle linebacker [d] | OT | Offensive tackle | OL | Offensive lineman | |||
OLB | Outside linebacker [a] | NT | Nose tackle | P | Punter | PR | Punt returner | |||
QB | Quarterback | RS | Return specialist | RB | Running back | S | Safety | |||
SS | Strong safety | TE | Tight end | WR | Wide receiver |
The 2025 NFL draft will take place at Lambeau Field and its adjacent Titletown District in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on April 24–26. [2]
The majority of training camps will be opened on July 23. The preseason will begin on July 31 with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game.
The season is planned to be played over an 18-week schedule, beginning on September 4. Each of the league's 32 teams plays 17 games, with one bye week. The regular season is then scheduled to end on January 4, 2026; all games during the final weekend will be intra-division games, as it has been since 2010. [1]
Each team plays the other three teams in its own division twice, one game against each of the four teams from a division in its own conference, one game against each of the four teams from a division in the other conference, one game against each of the remaining two teams in its conference that finished in the same position in their respective divisions the previous season (e.g., the team that finished fourth in its division would play all three other teams in its conference that also finished fourth in their divisions), and one game against a team in another division in the other conference that also finished in the same position in their respective division the previous season. [3]
The division pairings for 2025 are as follows: [3]
Four intra-conference games | Four interconference games | Interconference game by 2024 position |
Highlights of the 2025 season are planned to include the following:
This will be the third season of the league's flexible scheduling system that includes Sunday Night Football , Monday Night Football , and increased the amount of cross-flexing (switching) of Sunday afternoon games between CBS and Fox. [9] [10]
NFL owners will vote on whether the flexible scheduling rules will continue to include Thursday Night Football . They were initially approved in 2023 on a trial basis, then carried over into 2024 after no Thursday games were flexed during that first season. [11] Under these rules, only two Thursday Night Football games can be flexed between weeks 14 and 17, teams are not allowed play two away Thursday games during the season, the same team can not be flexed into TNF both times, and the league is required to give a 28-day notice. [11]
Assuming the other flexible scheduling rules remain the same as in 2024, any Monday Night Football game is allowed to be flexed between weeks 12 and 17, provided that the league announces its rescheduling no later than 12 days before the contests. For Sunday Night Football, no more than two games could be flexed between weeks 5 and 10, while any game between weeks 11 to 17 could be flexed; the league was required to give weeks 5 to 13 SNF games a 12-day notice, and weeks 14 to 17 a 6-day notice. [12] [13]
CBS and Fox are still able to protect games from being moved, whether from a change to another network or a change of the Sunday afternoon time slot. When the initial season schedule was created, the two networks select a limited number of games involving a specific number of teams from their respective conference. Otherwise every game can be initially scheduled on any network regardless of conference. [14] After the season starts, the two networks are allowed to protect one game each week from getting flexed. [9]
The 2025 playoffs are scheduled to begin with the wild-card round, with three wild-card games played in each conference. Wild Card Weekend is planned for January 10–12, 2026. In the Divisional round, scheduled for January 17–18, the top seed in the conference will play the lowest remaining seed and the other two remaining teams will play each other. The winners of those games advance to the Conference Championship games scheduled for January 25. Super Bowl LX is scheduled for February 8 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Team | Departing coach | Interim coach | Incoming coach | Reason for leaving | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chicago Bears | Matt Eberflus | Thomas Brown | TBA | Fired | After a 4–8 (.333) start including a 6-game losing streak, Eberflus was fired as head coach on November 29, 2024, after being hired in 2022. During his two and a half season tenure, Chicago was 14–32 (.304) with no playoff appearances. [15] Brown, the team's offensive coordinator, was named as interim head coach. This was his first head coaching position at any level. He finished the season with a 1–4 (.200) record. |
Dallas Cowboys | Mike McCarthy | TBA | Contract expired | McCarthy's contract was not renewed by the Cowboys on January 13 after five seasons together. During his tenure, the team went 49–35 (.583), with two NFC East division titles in three overall playoff appearances, and a playoff record of 1–3 (.250). [16] | |
Jacksonville Jaguars | Doug Pederson | TBA | Fired | Pederson was fired on January 6, after three seasons with the Jaguars. During his tenure, the team was 22–29 (.431), with one playoff appearance. [17] | |
Las Vegas Raiders | Antonio Pierce | TBA | Pierce was fired on January 7, after one and a half seasons with the Raiders. During his tenure, the team went 9–17 (.346) with no playoff appearances. [18] | ||
New England Patriots | Jerod Mayo | Mike Vrabel | Mayo was fired on January 5, after one 4–13 (.235) season with the Patriots. [19] On January 12, the Patriots hired Vrabel as their new head coach. As the head coach of the Tennessee Titans from 2018 to 2023, he compiled a record of 54–45 (.545), with three playoff appearances and a 2–3 (.400) playoff record. [20] | ||
New Orleans Saints | Dennis Allen | Darren Rizzi | TBA | After a 2–7 (.222) start including a 7-game losing streak, Allen was fired on November 4, 2024, after two and a half seasons as the team's head coach. During his tenure, the Saints were 18–25 (.419) with no playoff appearances. [21] Rizzi, the team's special teams coordinator, was elevated as interim head coach. He finished the season with a 3–5 (.375) record. | |
New York Jets | Robert Saleh | Jeff Ulbrich | TBA | Saleh was fired as head coach on October 8, 2024, with a 20–36 (.357) record (2–3 in 2024) after being hired in 2021. Ulbrich, the team's defensive coordinator, was named interim head coach. [22] This was his first head coaching position. He finished the season with a 3–9 (.250) record. |
Team | Departing GM | Interim replacement | Incoming GM | Reason for leaving | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
New York Jets | Joe Douglas | Phil Savage | TBA | Fired | Douglas was fired on November 19, 2024, after six seasons. Savage, the team's senior personnel advisor, was named interim GM. Savage previously served as general manager of the Cleveland Browns from 2005 to 2008. [23] |
Las Vegas Raiders | Tom Telesco | TBA | Telesco was fired on January 9, after only one season. [24] | ||
Tennessee Titans | Ran Carthon | TBA | Carthon was fired on January 7, after two seasons. [25] |
This will be the final season in which the Buffalo Bills will play their home games at their current Highmark Stadium, as their New Highmark Stadium is scheduled to open for the 2026 season. [26]
This will be the third season under 11-year U.S. media rights agreements with CBS, Fox, NBC, and ESPN/ABC along with its Spanish counterparts ESPN Deportes, Fox Deportes, and Telemundo Deportes. [27] Under these linear television rights:
All four broadcast partners will air at least one Wild Card round game, with CBS and Fox airing a AFC and NFC Wild Card game, respectively. NBC will air the Sunday night game under the fifth year of its seven-year deal. [46] [47] [48] ESPN/ABC will broadcast the Monday night Wild Card game, its last in a five-year deal. [49] [50] Fox will air a second game in the wild card round as part of its rotation with CBS and NBC. This will also be the second postseason that Amazon Prime Video will exclusively stream a Wild Card playoff game under a multi-year deal. [51]
This will be the third season that all four broadcast television partners air one divisional playoff game per season (ESPN/ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC). [52]
NBC will televise Super Bowl LX in the annual rotation of Super Bowl broadcasters. [53] Under this rotation, the league awarded NBC the Super Bowl during the same years it has its Winter Olympics coverage. Super Bowl LX will join Super Bowl LVI as the second time that the game is scheduled on a date within the date range of an ongoing Olympics event, the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. [54]
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league composed of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season, which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference, including four division winners and three wild card teams, advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament, which culminates in the Super Bowl, played in early February between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games.
Monday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on ABC from 1970 to 2005, before moving exclusively to sister network ESPN from 2006 to 2019. While still airing on ESPN, MNF returned to ABC in 2020 beginning with select ESPN simulcasts, later expanding to select ABC exclusive telecasts in 2022, and since 2023 ABC has aired the bulk of the games in simulcast with ESPN. In addition, ESPN2 features the Manningcast alternate telecast of select games, which was established in 2020, and since 2021, ESPN+ has served as the U.S. streaming home of MNF.
The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games in the United States are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any sport in the world. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, National Football League broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated national sports cable channels. Formerly operating as "a service of NBC News", it broadcasts a diverse array of sports events, including Big East basketball, Big Ten football and basketball, NASCAR, the National Football League (NFL), Notre Dame football, the Olympic Games, PGA Tour golf, the Premier League, the Tour de France, and Thoroughbred racing among others. Other programming from outside producers – such as coverage of the Ironman Triathlon – is also presented on the network through NBC Sports. With Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011, its own cable sports networks were aligned with NBC Sports into a part of the division known as the NBC Sports Group.
The 2006 NFL season was the 87th regular season of the National Football League (NFL). Regular season play was held from September 7 to December 31, 2006.
NBC Sunday Night Football is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which opened that year's preseason. NBC took over the rights to the Sunday prime time game telecasts from ESPN, which carried the broadcasts from 1987 to 2005. At the same time, ESPN began broadcasting Monday Night Football when it was dropped from sister network ABC. Previously, NBC had aired American Football League (AFL), and later American Football Conference (AFC), games from 1965 until 1997, when CBS took over those rights.
The 2007 NFL season was the 88th regular season of the National Football League (NFL).
Thursday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time.
In the United States, sports are televised on various broadcast networks, national and specialty sports cable channels, and regional sports networks. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44 percent of the total worldwide sports media market. U.S. networks are willing to pay a significant amount of money for television sports contracts because it attracts large amounts of viewership; live sport broadcasts accounted for 44 of the 50 list of most watched television broadcasts in the United States in 2016.
As of the 2022 NFL season, CTV and TSN broadcast Sunday games. Monday Night Football airs exclusively on TSN. TSN and CTV 2 own rights to Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. RDS carries games in the French language from all timeslots. U.S. network television feeds may also be available, often from multiple markets, on cable and satellite ; all games are subject to simultaneous substitution. Monday Night Football also airs in simultaneous substitution with the ABC feed on CTV2 beginning with the 2023 season.
The history of the National Football League on television documents the long history of the National Football League on television. The NFL, along with boxing and professional wrestling, was a pioneer of sports broadcasting during a time when baseball and college football were more popular than professional football. Due to the NFL understanding television at an earlier time, they were able to surpass Major League Baseball in the 1960s as the most popular sport in the United States. Today, NFL broadcasting contracts are among the most valuable in the world.
The 2017 NFL season was the 98th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL) and the 52nd of the Super Bowl era. The season began on September 7, 2017, with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the defending Super Bowl LI champion New England Patriots in the NFL Kickoff Game. The season concluded with Super Bowl LII, in which the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles defeated the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to win their first Super Bowl title, and fourth NFL championship, in franchise history, and making the NFC East the first and currently only division where every team has won a Super Bowl.
Recently, the NFL's TV broadcasters have suffered annual financial losses because advertising revenue is unable to keep up with the rising costs of broadcast rights.
Until the broadcast contract ended in 2013, the terrestrial television networks CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as cable television's ESPN, paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion to broadcast NFL games. From 2014 to 2022, the same networks will pay $39.6 billion for exactly the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. In 2017, the NFL games attracted the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for NBC Sunday Night Football, $550,709 for Thursday Night Football (NBC), and $549,791 for Thursday Night Football (CBS).
Super Bowl LX is the planned American football championship game of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2025 season. The game is scheduled to be played on February 8, 2026, at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
The 2024 NFL season is the 105th season of the National Football League (NFL). The season began on September 5, 2024, with reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City defeating Baltimore in the NFL Kickoff Game. The regular season concluded on January 5, 2025. The playoffs started on January 11 and will conclude with Super Bowl LIX, the league's championship game, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 9.
From 2014 to 2022, CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as cable television's ESPN, paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion will pay $39.6 billion for exactly the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. In 2017, the NFL games attracted the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for NBC Sunday Night Football, $550,709 for Thursday Night Football (NBC), and $549,791 for Thursday Night Football (CBS).
The 2023 NFL season was the 104th season of the National Football League (NFL). The regular season began on September 7, 2023, with defending Super Bowl LVII champion Kansas City losing to Detroit in the NFL Kickoff Game, and ended on January 7, 2024.
When the NFL's 11-year television contract starts in 2023, NBC's spot in the Super Bowl rotation lines up the same year as the Winter Olympics.