This article is about the American football season in the United States. For the Gaelic football season in Ireland, see 2026 National Football League (Ireland).
The 2026 NFL season will be the upcoming 107th season of the National Football League (NFL). The regular season is scheduled to begin on September 10, 2026, with the NFL Kickoff Game, and end on January 10, 2027. The playoffs are then set to begin on January 16 and will conclude with Super Bowl LXI, the league's championship game, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California on February 14, making it the NFL's latest date to end the season.
The 2026 NFL league year and trading period is scheduled to begin on March 11. On March 9, teams will be allowed to exercise options for 2026 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 2025 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 11, clubs will be allowed to contact and begin contract negotiations with players whose contracts had expired and thus became unrestricted free agents.[1]
The season is planned to be played over an 18-week schedule, beginning on September 10. Each of the league's 32 teams plays 17 games, with one bye week. The regular season is then scheduled to end on January 10, 2027; all games during the final weekend will be intra-division games, as it has been since 2010.
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]
Thanksgiving: Three Thanksgiving Day games are planned to be held on November 26, with Detroit and Dallas expected to host traditional afternoon doubleheader, and a primetime game between opponents yet to be announced. Another game will be scheduled on the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving.[10]
Christmas: Christmas Day, December 25, lands on a Friday. When this happened the last time in 2020, that week's Thursday Night Football was played on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve.
The 2026 Playoffs are scheduled to begin with the Wild Card Round from January 16–18, 2027, with three games played in each conference. In the Divisional Round, scheduled for January 23–24, the top seed in the conference will play the lowest remaining seed and the other two remaining teams play each other. The winners of those games advance to the Conference Championship games scheduled for January 31. Super Bowl LXI is scheduled for February 14 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
Daboll was fired as head coach on November 10, 2025, with a 20–40–1 (.336) record (2–8 in 2025) after being hired in 2022 and appearing in the playoffs once in 2022.[14]
Kafka, the team's assistant head coach and offensive coordinator, took over as interim coach. This was his first head coaching position at any level.[15]
Callahan was fired as head coach on October 13, 2025, with a 4–19 (.174) record (1–5 in 2025) after being hired in 2024.[16]
McCoy, the team's senior offensive assistant, took over as interim coach. This was his second NFL head coaching position, having previously been the head coach of the San Diego Chargers from 2013 to 2016, with a record of 27–37 (.422) and one playoff appearance.[17]
Grier and the Dolphins mutually agreed to part ways on October 31, 2025, after almost ten seasons as Dolphins' GM with a 77–80 (.490) record and three play-off appearances.
Kelly, the team's senior personnel executive, was named interim GM. Previously, he was the interim general manager of the Las Vegas Raiders in 2023.[18]
Stadiums
This is planned to be the first season that the Buffalo Bills will play at the new Highmark Stadium. The team had played at the previously-named Highmark Stadium (originally Rich Stadium) since 1973.[19]
This is scheduled to be the final season in which the Tennessee Titans will play their home games at their current Nissan Stadium. The new stadium, also to be called Nissan Stadium, is scheduled to be completed by the start of the 2027 season.[20]
Uniforms
Rivalries series
AFC South and NFC North teams are scheduled to unveil their "rivalries" uniforms in 2026, designed to be worn at one home divisional game per season.[21]
Media
National
Pending ESPN–NFL Media merger
ESPN and NFL Network's 2026 media rights are contingent on the pending ESPN–NFL Media merger and whether the deal receives regulatory approval prior to the announcement of the 2026 season schedule. Under the agreement announced in August 5, 2025, the NFL would take a 10 percent equity stake in ESPN in exchange for ESPN acquiring NFL Network (including taking over production of the NFL Network Exclusive Game Series and its rights to air select International Series and late season Saturday games), television distribution rights to NFL RedZone and the RedZone brand, and the league's official fantasy football service. ESPN's existing deal to produce Monday Night Football, the doubleheader on the last Saturday of the season, ABC simulcasting select MNF games and the Saturday doubleheader, and ESPN2 featuring the alternative Manningcast on select games, and ESPN DTC simulcasting all ESPN-produced games (including any alternate telecasts), would be unaffected. However if the deal closes, the league would no longer schedule Monday night doubleheaders (whether traditional doubleheaders on ESPN and/or ABC, or "split doubleheaders" in which ESPN and ABC air separate games) with ABC gaining three additional simulcasts as a result of the loss of those doubleheaders, and instead resell the rights to those four extra games to interested broadcasters.[22][23][24][25]
Other media rights
Linear television
This will be the fourth year of the existing 11-year U.S. media deals with CBS, Fox, NBC, along with its Spanish counterparts Fox Deportes, and Telemundo Deportes:
Sunday afternoon games will continue to be split between CBS and Fox, with the two networks carrying the Sunday afternoon AFC and NFC packages, respectively. When the initial schedule is created, CBS and Fox will be able to specify a limited amount of games involving teams from their respective conference that they want to air, but otherwise the league was free to schedule games regardless of conference.[26] Each network will air ten Sunday doubleheaders, with both networks airing one in Weeks 15 and 18. On Thanksgiving afternoon, CBS will have the early Detroit game and Fox will have the late Dallas game, Fox also has the option to air any Christmas Day games at it’s discretion.[27]
Like in previous seasons, any additional one-year modifications or separate deals to these linear TV rights are expected to be announced with the 2026 season schedule.
Fox One will simulcast in market and national Fox games.[29][30]
Paramount+ will simulcast in market and national CBS games.[27]
Peacock will simulcast NBC's games.[27] This will also be the fourth season in a six-year deal that the platform will exclusively stream one regular season game.[28]
This will be Netflix's third and final year to exclusively stream select Christmas Day games.[31][32]
This will be the fourth season out of a seven-year deal that the NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market sports package will stream on YouTube TV, as well as on YouTube's Primetime Channels service as a standalone subscription option.[33]
Like in previous seasons, any additional one-year modifications or separate deals to these streaming rights are expected to be announced with the 2026 season schedule.
Postseason
During the Wild Card round, CBS and Fox will air an AFC and NFC Wild Card game, respectively. NBC will air the Sunday night game under the sixth year of its seven-year deal.[34][35][36] ESPN/ABC will broadcast a Wild Card game on a date to-be-determined, as its previous deal to air the Monday night Wild Card game expired after the previous postseason.[37][38] NBC will air a second Wild Card game this season as part of the rotation with Fox and CBS. This will also be the third postseason under a multi-year deal that Amazon Prime Video will exclusively stream a Wild Card playoff game.[39][40]
This will be the fourth season that all four broadcast television partners air one divisional playoff game per season (ESPN/ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC).[41]
Under the annual rotation of Super Bowl broadcasters, Super Bowl LXI will be the first time that the game will be an ESPN/ABC simulcast,[42], the first time ABC will have aired the Super Bowl since 2005's Super Bowl XL, and the first time ever that ESPN will air a live Super Bowl.[32][43]
Radio
Westwood One Radio has rights to air all games televised by the national partners (including streaming).[44]
This is the fifth and final season of the league's five-year deal with SiriusXM to simulcast all 32 teams' local regular season and postseason broadcasts, including a wraparound show called SiriusXM NFL Sunday Drive.[47]
International
ESPN will air its slate of games in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania and the Netherlands; and through Disney+ in select markets in Asia and Europe.[41]
In the UK and Ireland:
This will the second year of a three-year deal that Sky Sports will broadcast select games on either their dedicated Sky Sports NFL Channel or through their Sky Sports+ channels.[48]
This will the second year of a multi-year deal that the free-to-air Channel 5 will broadcast games through their main channel as well as 5Action.[49]
This will be the fourth year of a ten-year deal that DAZN will distribute NFL Game Pass International.[50]
↑Karp, Austin (February 6, 2025). "Prime gets Wild Card game for duration of NFL deal". Sports Business Journal. Retrieved February 7, 2025. The Wild Card deal, which was originally reported as a one-year pact this time last year, will run through the 2032 season ... Amazon reportedly paid around $150 million to stream the game in 2024, but it is not known what the escalators are for the subsequent seven years.
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