NFL Christmas games

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Christmas Day and Christmas Eve games in the National Football League (NFL) are an occasional part of the league's schedule. In contrast to Thanksgiving Day games, however, they are not an annual occurrence, since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday while Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, December 24–25, can fall at any day of the week. The NFL held two Divisional Playoff games on Christmas Day in 1971 when the regular season only spanned a 14-week period. This proved unpopular, and the league avoided any more games on Christmas Day until 1989. Since then, the NFL has occasionally held games on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in some years, as part of week 16 or 17 of the regular season.

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As of the end of the 2022 season, there have been 27 Christmas Day games in the NFL's history, all broadcast nationally. Two games were played each Christmas Day from 2004 to 2006, 2016 to 2017, and 2021. In 2022 and 2023, three games were scheduled.

The NFL has typically scheduled games on Christmas Day, December 25, if it falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. When Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, then it would just be part of the normal slate of the handful of Saturday NFL games held during the final weeks of every regular season. If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, then the normal slate of Sunday afternoon games is instead played on Saturday, Christmas Eve, and one of the Christmas Day games will include the standard Sunday Night Football telecast. When Christmas Day falls on a Monday, the normal slate of Sunday afternoon games is still played on Christmas Eve, and Monday Night Football on Christmas night, but the Sunday Night Football telecast has been moved to either Monday afternoon or to Saturday, December 23. There have been rare instances of Christmas Day games held on a Friday and Christmas Eve games on a Thursday.

History

Early years

In the earliest days of professional football, the season typically ended near the end of November (marquee games were often played on Thanksgiving) or in the first week of December, depending on the team; exhibition games would then be held in the winter. Once league schedules were standardized in the 1930s, the NFL Championship Game was typically held in mid-December. The 1943 NFL Championship Game, played on December 26 of that year because of scheduling complications brought on by World War II, was the first regulation NFL game to be played on or after Christmas.

From 1943 until the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger, the NFL regular season usually ended in mid-December, with the NFL Championship Game being held on the Sunday two weeks later. If that Sunday fell on Christmas Day December 25, the league preferred to move it to the following day, Monday, December 26; this rescheduling occurred for both the 1955 and the 1960 championship games.

The American Football League compensated differently: the 1960 championship game was moved back by a full week, being played on New Year's Day 1961, with Christmas Sunday being an off-week. (The NFL's 1966 championship game was also held on Sunday, January 1, 1967, two weeks after the end of the regular season.) New Year's Day was an available day since the college bowl games are moved back to Monday, January 2 in years in which January 1 falls on a Sunday. The AFL had scheduled the 1966 championship game for Monday afternoon December 26, but when the two leagues agreed to merge in 1970 and play a "World Championship game" starting with the 1966 season, the AFL game was moved back to Sunday, January 1.

1971 Divisional Playoffs

The first NFL games actually played on December 25 came after the merger, during the 1971–72 NFL playoffs. The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round were held on Christmas Day; the first of these was between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings, while the second of the two contests played that afternoon, the Miami Dolphins versus the Kansas City Chiefs, wound up being the longest game in NFL history. [1] Because of the length of the latter game, the NFL received numerous complaints, reportedly due to the fact that it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation. The league also came under fire from some quarters for intruding on a traditional religious and family holiday, and a Kansas state legislator proposed a bill to ban the scheduling of future games on December 25. [2] [3] As a result, the NFL decided to not schedule any Christmas Day games for the next 17 seasons.

Avoiding Christmas

This required considerable effort during those years in which Christmas Day fell on a Saturday or a Sunday, given that ordinarily those days would be days in which NFL playoff games were to be held.

In 1976, the NFL opened its regular season a week earlier than would have ordinarily been the case (September 12, the second Sunday of the month, rather than the customary third Sunday) so that the Divisional Playoffs could be held on December 18 and 19 instead of December 25 and 26, and thus no games would be needed on Saturday, December 25 (Super Bowl XI was subsequently played on January 9, the earliest date in Super Bowl history).

In 1977, with Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, the Divisional Playoff Games were held around the holiday, with an AFC doubleheader on Saturday, December 24, and an NFC doubleheader on Monday, December 26. This was done so that one team did not have a two-day rest advantage over the other for the Conference Championship games (the NFL only allowed one-day rest advantages). This scheduling resulted in most of the country missing the majority of the first quarter of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Denver Broncos game telecast (beginning at 4:00 p.m. EST), since the early AFC game that Saturday (Oakland Raiders-Baltimore Colts, beginning at 12:30 p.m. EST) went into double overtime; with an ordinary schedule of one game from each conference, viewers would have had the option of switching channels (or using a VCR) but in this case NBC simply stayed with the Raiders-Colts game (except in the Pittsburgh and Denver markets) and had to overlap its telecasts.

The NFL continued to avoid Christmas Day even after it started to extend the length of the regular season and the playoffs. The league expanded to a 16-game regular season and a 10-team playoff tournament in 1978, but it was not until 1982 that the regular season ended after Christmas Day. It was originally scheduled to end on Sunday, December 26 of that year, but the regular season was extended to Sunday, January 2, 1983 after the 57-day NFL players' strike reduced the season from 16 games to 9; the NFL compensated by extending the regular season one week and eliminating the off week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl.

In 1983 and again in 1988, the NFL split the first round Wild Card Playoffs between Saturday, December 24 and Monday, December 26 to avoid a Christmas Day game.

Had the United States Football League (USFL) survived to play its autumn 1986 season, it would have featured the first major professional football games to be played in the regular season on Christmas Day; the USFL planned a complete set of four games for Christmas Day. [4] The USFL suspended operations prior to the 1986 season and the games were never played.

Regular season games on Christmas

Finally, in 1989, the NFL tried another Christmas Day game, Cincinnati at Minnesota, but it was a 9:00 p.m. EST Monday Night Football contest on ABC, thereby avoiding interfering with family dinners. The NFL pushed the regular season back one week in 1989 as a one-off experiment, meaning Christmas Day would fall during the last week of the regular season instead of the first round of the playoffs. The league added a bye week to its schedule in 1990, making Christmas Day permanently fall during the regular season. In the years since, the NFL has played an occasional late-afternoon or night game on the holiday, but the league did not schedule a Christmas Day game starting earlier than 3:30 p.m. local time (for either participating team) from 1971 through 2021.

The league has generally played one or two games on Christmas Day when the holiday falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. If Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, then it would just be part of the normal slate of the handful of Saturday games during the final weeks of the regular season. Since 1994, if Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, then most of the usual Sunday afternoon games are instead played on Saturday, Christmas Eve. The league also played rare Friday games on Christmas Day in 2009 and 2020, both of which were considered special editions of Thursday Night Football . [5] [6]

With December 25 again falling on a Sunday in 2022, the NFL scheduled three Christmas Day games for the first time, which consisted of single games for each Sunday network -- Fox at the traditional 1:00 p.m. ET early slot, CBS in the late game slot, which was moved back five minutes from the usual doubleheader slot to 4:30 p.m. ET, and Sunday Night Football . [7] [8] The CBS game included an alternate, youth-oriented broadcast on sister network Nickelodeon, after having previously aired Wild Card games in such a manner. [9]

Under the NFL's next round of television deals reached in March 2021, which will begin in 2023 and run through 2033, Fox acquired the rights to air special Christmas Day games as the schedule permits. These special Christmas Day games are in addition to standard primetime games on Christmas Day (such as Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football in years in which Christmas Day lands on those days). [10] With December 25 landing on a Monday in 2023, the league scheduled another tripleheader, once again consisting of national CBS and Fox games, and that week's Monday Night Football. [11] The CBS game once again included an alternate, youth-oriented broadcast on sister network Nickelodeon.

All-time results

1971 playoff games

SeasonVisiting teamScoreHome teamSignificanceTV
1971
(Saturday)		 Dallas Cowboys 20–12 Minnesota Vikings Cowboys–Vikings rivalry CBS [12]
Miami Dolphins 27–24 (2OT) Kansas City Chiefs NBC [13]

Regular season

SeasonVisiting teamScoreHome teamSignificanceTV
1989
(Monday)		 Cincinnati Bengals 21–29 Minnesota Vikings ABC [14]
1993
(Saturday)		 Houston Oilers 10–7 San Francisco 49ers NBC [15]
1994
(Sunday)		 Detroit Lions 20–27 Miami Dolphins ESPN [16]
1995
(Monday)		 Dallas Cowboys 37–13 Arizona Cardinals ABC [17]
1999
(Saturday)		 Denver Broncos 17–7 Detroit Lions CBS [18]
2000
(Monday)		 Dallas Cowboys 0–31 Tennessee Titans ABC [19]
2004
(Saturday)		 Oakland Raiders 30–31 Kansas City Chiefs Chiefs–Raiders rivalry CBS [20]
Denver Broncos 37–16 Tennessee Titans ESPN [21]
2005
(Sunday)		 Chicago Bears 24–17 Green Bay Packers Bears–Packers rivalry Fox [22]
Minnesota Vikings 23–30 Baltimore Ravens ESPN [23]
2006
(Monday)		 Philadelphia Eagles 23–7 Dallas Cowboys Cowboys–Eagles rivalry NBC [24]
New York Jets 13–10 Miami Dolphins Dolphins–Jets rivalry ESPN [25]
2009
(Friday)		 San Diego Chargers 42–17 Tennessee Titans NFLN [26]
2010
(Saturday)		 Dallas Cowboys 26–27 Arizona Cardinals NFLN [27]
2011
(Sunday)		 Chicago Bears 21–35 Green Bay Packers Bears–Packers rivalry NBC [28]
2016
(Sunday)		 Baltimore Ravens 27–31 Pittsburgh Steelers Ravens–Steelers rivalry NFLN [29]
Denver Broncos 10–33 Kansas City Chiefs Broncos–Chiefs rivalry NBC [30]
2017
(Monday)		 Pittsburgh Steelers 34–6 Houston Texans NBC/NFLN [31]
Oakland Raiders 10–19 Philadelphia Eagles ESPN [32]
2020
(Friday)		 Minnesota Vikings 33–52 New Orleans Saints Saints–Vikings rivalry Fox/NFLN [33]
2021
(Saturday)		 Cleveland Browns 22–24 Green Bay Packers Fox/NFLN [34]
Indianapolis Colts 22–16 Arizona Cardinals NFLN [35]
2022
(Sunday)		 Green Bay Packers 26–20 Miami Dolphins Fox [36]
Denver Broncos 14–51 Los Angeles Rams CBS/Nick [37]
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 19–16 (OT) Arizona Cardinals NBC [38]
2023
(Monday)		 Las Vegas Raiders 0–0 Kansas City Chiefs Chiefs–Raiders rivalry CBS/Nick
New York Giants 0–0 Philadelphia Eagles Eagles–Giants rivalry Fox
Baltimore Ravens 0–0 San Francisco 49ers ABC

Christmas Day standings

By franchise (through the 2022 games)

TeamGames playedWinsLossesTiesWin %
Philadelphia Eagles 22001.000
Pittsburgh Steelers 22001.000
Indianapolis Colts 11001.000
Los Angeles Chargers 11001.000
Los Angeles Rams 11001.000
New Orleans Saints 11001.000
New York Jets 11001.000
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11001.000
Green Bay Packers 4310.750
Kansas City Chiefs 3210.667
Denver Broncos 4220.500
Miami Dolphins 4220.500
Tennessee Titans 4220.500
Baltimore Ravens 2110.500
Chicago Bears 2110.500
Dallas Cowboys 5230.400
Arizona Cardinals 4130.250
Minnesota Vikings 4130.250
Cincinnati Bengals 1010.000
Cleveland Browns 1010.000
Houston Texans 1010.000
San Francisco 49ers 1010.000
Detroit Lions 2020.000
Las Vegas Raiders 2020.000

Christmas Eve

There have also been several games played on Christmas Eve over the years, the most famous of these being an Oakland Raiders-Baltimore Colts playoff contest in 1977 which culminated in a play immortalized as "Ghost to the Post". These games have historically been played early in the afternoon out of deference to the holiday. If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday (most recently in 2022), then most of the weekend's NFL games will be on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, except for a few games played on Thursday, Sunday, or Monday night in the league's regular prime-time television packages.

Sunday games

Since the Sunday Night Football package moved to NBC in 2006, there have been three instances in which Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday. In 2006, while the regular slate of afternoon games was played, no Sunday night game was scheduled. Instead, two games were played on Monday, Christmas Day. NBC, which was under contract to air the Sunday night game, aired the first Christmas Day game pitting the Philadelphia Eagles against the Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium, with a 5:00 p.m. EST kickoff (it is the only Monday game called by longtime Monday Night Football announcer Al Michaels since the move of Monday Night Football to ESPN and his move to NBC). ESPN followed at 8:30 p.m. with the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football. In 2017, the normal Sunday Night Football game was moved to Saturday, December 23 and no Christmas Eve game was played (on Christmas Day, Monday, there was a special Thursday Night Football on NBC and NFL Network, along with the standard Monday Night Football game).

The league will once again follow suit in 2023 with NBC airing on Saturday, December 23 instead. The Christmas Eve night game will instead air on NFL Network. [39]

Monday games

In 2007, Christmas Eve landed on a Monday. This proved especially problematic; from 2007 to 2021 the league's television contract with ESPN required the league to provide 17 Monday Night Football games over the course of the first 16 weeks of the season (the league no longer schedules a Monday night game for the final weekend of the season). In seasons' past, the league compensated for an instance like this by giving ESPN or ABC an extra Saturday or Thursday night game later in the season, but this was no longer possible because the new television contract gave the rights to those games to NFL Network. Thus, with the league already stretching its limits by placing a Monday night doubleheader on opening weekend, this meant that every available Monday night would have to air at least one game, even if it were Christmas Eve. To ease the issue, the game was scheduled between two Western teams, the Denver Broncos at the San Diego Chargers, so that the game could start at 5:00 p.m. local time. The same scenario was set to occur in 2012, but the NFL's newly renegotiated television contract allowed ESPN to move the scheduled "Monday Night" game for that week to the Saturday before (the Saturday night game in 2012 would feature the Atlanta Falcons and the Detroit Lions). This happened again in 2018, but the NFL reverted to the 2007 situation, with the Denver Broncos visiting the Oakland Raiders. Since 2021, ESPN has been given two "Monday Night" games on Saturday in Week 18.

Thursday games

Since the Thursday Night Football package began in 2006, there have been three instances when Christmas Eve was on a Thursday. In 2009, no game was scheduled on December 24, opting instead to hold a special edition of Thursday Night Football on Christmas Day (see above). In 2015, the NFL scheduled a Thursday Night Football two west coast teams, with the game starting at 5:25 p.m. local time, and no games scheduled on Christmas Day. When Christmas Eve fell again on a Thursday in 2020, the league once again did the opposite and only held a game on Christmas Day.

Friday games

The 1999 and 2004 seasons featured a Christmas Eve matchups on Friday afternoons, which are among the rare instances when the league has played on Friday. With Christmas Day occurring on a weekend, most businesses were closed Friday in observance of the holiday. However, the league did not schedule games the two most recent times Christmas Eve landed on a Friday (2010 and 2021).

Saturday games

For 2016, Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday. A reduced slate of 11 afternoon games were scheduled on Christmas Eve, and a special edition of Thursday Night Football aired on NFL Network between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Houston Texans. The game started at 7:25 p.m. local time in Houston marking the latest NFL game played on Christmas Eve. [40] [41] The league followed suit for 2022; this time, NFL Network scheduled a rare East coast primetime game on Christmas Eve, featuring the Las Vegas Raiders at the Pittsburgh Steelers to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Immaculate Reception. [42] [43]

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References

  1. ↑ Ho Ho Ho! The NFL on Christmas History
  2. ↑ "NFL Playoffs on Christmas Draw Protests Across Land". The Los Angeles Times. 1971-12-17.
  3. ↑ Eldridge, Larry (1971-12-22). "The football grinch who stole Christmas". The Christian Science Monitor.
  4. ↑ "1986 USFL Schedule - USFL (United States Football League)".
  5. ↑ "2020 NFL schedule includes rare Friday game as Christmas Day surprise in Week 16". CBSSports.com. Retrieved 2022-05-12.
  6. ↑ "NFL's schedule features twists". Los Angeles Times. 2009-04-15. Retrieved 2022-05-12.
  7. ↑ "The NFL is reportedly planning on a Christmas Day tripleheader this year". Awful Announcing. 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  8. ↑ Florio, Mike (2022-04-22). "NFL plans a Christmas Day triple-header, for the first time ever". ProFootballTalk. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  9. ↑ Bromberg, Nick (May 10, 2022). "2022 NFL schedule: Rams will host Russell Wilson and Broncos as part of Christmas tripleheader". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  10. ↑ "Fox Corporation Announces New Eleven-Year Media Rights Agreement with the National Football League". PR News Wire. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
  11. ↑ "2023 NFL schedule release: Tripleheaders highlight Thanksgiving, Christmas Day slates". NFL.com. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  12. ↑ "Divisional Round - Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings - December 25th, 1971". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  13. ↑ "Divisional Round - Miami Dolphins at Kansas City Chiefs - December 25th, 1971". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  14. ↑ "Cincinnati Bengals at Minnesota Vikings - December 25th, 1989". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  15. ↑ "Houston Oilers at San Francisco 49ers - December 25th, 1993". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  16. ↑ "Detroit Lions at Miami Dolphins - December 25th, 1994". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  17. ↑ "Dallas Cowboys at Arizona Cardinals - December 25th, 1995". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  18. ↑ "Denver Broncos at Detroit Lions - December 25th, 1999". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  19. ↑ "Dallas Cowboys at Tennessee Titans - December 25th, 2000". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  20. ↑ "Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs - December 25th, 2004". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  21. ↑ "Denver Broncos at Tennessee Titans - December 25th, 2004". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  22. ↑ "Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers - December 25th, 2005". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  23. ↑ "Minnesota Vikings at Baltimore Ravens - December 25th, 2005". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  24. ↑ "Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys - December 25th, 2006". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  25. ↑ "New York Jets at Miami Dolphins - December 25th, 2006". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  26. ↑ "San Diego Chargers at Tennessee Titans - December 25th, 2009". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  27. ↑ "Dallas Cowboys at Arizona Cardinals - December 25th, 2010". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  28. ↑ "Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers - December 25th, 2011". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  29. ↑ "Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers - December 25th, 2016". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  30. ↑ "Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs - December 25th, 2016". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  31. ↑ "Pittsburgh Steelers at Houston Texans - December 25th, 2017". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  32. ↑ "Oakland Raiders at Philadelphia Eagles - December 25th, 2017". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  33. ↑ "Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints - December 25th, 2020". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  34. ↑ "Cleveland Browns at Green Bay Packers - December 25th, 2021". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  35. ↑ "Indianapolis Colts at Arizona Cardinals - December 25th, 2021". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  36. ↑ "Green Bay Packers at Miami Dolphins - December 25th, 2022". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
  37. ↑ "Denver Broncos at Los Angeles Rams - December 25th, 2022". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
  38. ↑ "Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Arizona Cardinals - December 25th, 2022". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
  39. ↑ "NFL.com | Official Site of the National Football League". NFL.com. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
  40. ↑ "NFL Week 16 schedule: Christmas comes early for pro football fans". AL.com. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  41. ↑ "NFL throws huge Christmas curveball on 2016 regular-season schedule". CBSSports.com. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  42. ↑ Rutter, Joe (December 21, 2022). "Steelers great Franco Harris dies at age 72". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review . Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  43. ↑ "Steelers retire Franco Harris' No. 32 during emotional halftime ceremony days after Hall of Famer's death". NFL.com. Retrieved 2022-12-25.
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