The National Football League (NFL) regular season begins on the weekend following the first Monday of September (i.e., the weekend following the Labor Day holiday) and ends in early January, after which that season's playoffs tournament begins. It consists of 272 games, with each of the NFL's 32 teams playing 17 games during an 18-week period with one "bye" week off.
Since 2012, the NFL generally schedules games in five time slots during the week. The first game of the week is played on Thursday night, kicking off at 8:15 pm ET except for the kickoff game and Thanksgiving games, which kick off at 8:20 pm. The majority of games are played on Sunday, most kicking off at 1 pm ET, with some late afternoon games starting at either 4:05 or 4:25 pm ET. Additionally, one Sunday night game is played every week at 8:20 pm ET. Finally, one or two Monday night games start at 8:15 pm ET (if two games are played one of the games will start at 7:30 pm or 9 pm). In addition to these regularly scheduled games, there are occasionally games at other times, such as a Saturday afternoon or evening, the annual Thanksgiving Day games in which two daytime Thursday games are played in addition to the normal Thursday night game, and since 2023 a Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving) afternoon game.
In place since 2006, the current broadcasting contract establishes broadcast partners for each game. The Sunday afternoon games are broadcast either on CBS or Fox. CBS has the broadcast rights for teams in the American Football Conference while Fox has the rights for teams in the National Football Conference. In games where teams from both conferences play each other, the network with the broadcast rights for the "away" team will broadcast the game. In each local television market, three Sunday afternoon games are shown. One of the two networks shows two games back-to-back in each time slot, while the other network has the right to broadcast a single game, showing one game in either time slot; the networks generally alternate weeks (but not always) when each has the right to show both games.
In addition to the regular Sunday afternoon games, there are regularly three prime time games each week (Monday night football on select weeks may have two games, along with late season Saturday night games). With the exception of the NFL Kickoff Game and the Thanksgiving night game, which are broadcast by NBC, the Thursday night game is broadcast by Amazon Prime Video. The Sunday night game is broadcast by NBC, while the Monday night game is broadcast by ESPN/ABC. The Black Friday game is also broadcast by Prime Video.
The NFL uses a strict scheduling algorithm to determine which teams play each other from year to year, based on the current division alignments and the final division standings from the previous season. The current formula has been in place since , the last year that the NFL expanded its regular season. Generally, each team plays the other three teams in its own division once at home and once away, all four teams from a single division in the AFC once, all four teams from a single division in the NFC once, two additional intraconference games, and one additional interconference game.
Game times
Since 1990, the majority of NFL regular-season games are played on Sundays at 1:00 pm, or around 4:05 to 4:25 pm ET (see below). The late afternoon (ET) window is usually reserved for games hosted in the Pacific Time Zone or Mountain Time Zone, plus one or more marquee contests. The current NFL television contract awards the American broadcast of these games to Fox or CBS, usually with Fox showing games where the visiting team is from the NFC, and CBS showing games where the visiting team is from the AFC. Each of these Sunday afternoon games is televised on a regional basis to a few or several areas around the country, therefore each viewer can only see a maximum of two games during each broadcast window, whereas the remaining games are exclusive to the NFL Sunday Ticket premium package.
Every Sunday of the regular season, either CBS or Fox will air two games in a doubleheader package, while the other network may show only one game (with the exception of weeks 1 and 18 in which both networks have a doubleheader). Late games scheduled to air on the network showing only one game are scheduled to start at 4:05 pm ET, while the second game of a doubleheader will kick off later at 4:25 pm; this is to reduce conflicts with 1:00 pm games that have run late.NFL pushes late doubleheader games back to 4:25 pm ET
The schedule allows for four other regular time slots, in which these games are broadcast nationally across the country: One Sunday Night Football game, which has been regularly scheduled since 1987, and has aired on NBC since 2006. One Monday Night Football game on most weeks, (except for three to four weeks in which one game airs exclusively on ESPN+ and three on ABC since 2022) which has been regularly scheduled since 1970, and has been appearing on ESPN since 2006. Also from 2006 to 2020, two games were on the first Monday of the season. The practice of holding a Monday night game during the last week of the season ended after the 2002 season due to low ratings and a competitive imbalance involved for potential playoff teams who would have one less day of rest before the postseason. With the expansion of the season to 18 weeks in 2021, no Week 1 MNF doubleheader was scheduled that season. Since 2002, the league has also scheduled games on Thursday nights. This is in addition to the Thanksgiving Day games traditionally hosted by Detroit (since 1920) and Dallas (since 1966). Starting in 2002 the NFL Kickoff Game, traditionally hosted by the defending Super Bowl champions, has been held on the Thursday preceding the start of the rest of the games. Since 2006, additional Thursday night games have been added to the season (with the games counting as part of the "week" including the upcoming Sunday), at first only after Thanksgiving, and since 2012, during nearly every week of the season. Some late season games in every season since 1970, except for 2013, have been played on Saturdays.
Since the 2006 season, the NFL has used a "flexible scheduling" system for the last seven weeks of the regular season when there is a Sunday night game. In 2014, that was expanded to include weeks 5 – 17 and since 2022 to include Monday nights on weeks 12–17 and in 2023 and 2024 to include weeks 13-17 for Thursday nights. This flexible scheduling allows for regional games originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon to be moved to the marquee Sunday Night matchup, to be broadcast to a national audience instead.
History Number of regular season games per team–12 games–11 games (12 weeks)–10 games (12 weeks)11 games (12 weeks)–12 games (variable weeks)–14 games (14 weeks)14 games (15 weeks, odd number of teams)–14 games (14 weeks)–16 games (16 weeks)9 games (17 weeks, strike)–16 games (16 weeks)15 games (16 weeks, strike)–16 games (16 weeks)–16 games (17 weeks)16 games (18 weeks, additional bye week)–16 games (17 weeks)16 games (18 weeks, September 11 attacks)–16 games (17 weeks)–present17 games (18 weeks)
In its early years after , the NFL did not have a set schedule, and teams played as few as one and as many as sixteen games, many against independent professional, college, or amateur teams. From through , they played from eleven to fourteen games per season, depending on the number of teams in the league. From through , each NFL team played 12 games per season. The American Football League began play in 1960 and introduced a balanced schedule of 14 games per team over a fifteen-week season, in which each of the eight teams played each of the other teams twice, with one bye week. Competition from the new league caused the NFL to expand and follow suit with a fourteen-game schedule in .
Also in 1961, the U.S. Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 in response to a court decision which ruled that the NFL's method of negotiating television broadcasting rights violated antitrust laws. The law allows the league to sell the rights to all regular season and postseason games to the networks, but prohibits the league from directly competing with high school and college football games. Since high school and college teams typically play games on Friday and Saturday, respectively, the NFL cannot hold games on those days until those seasons generally end in mid-December.
From through , the NFL schedule consisted of fourteen regular season games played over fourteen weeks, except in . Opening weekend typically was the weekend after Labor Day, or rarely two weekends after Labor Day. Teams played six or seven exhibition games. In 1966 (and 1960), the NFL had an odd number of franchises, so one team was idle each week.
In , the league changed the schedule to include sixteen regular season games and four exhibition games. From 1978 through , the sixteen games were played over sixteen weeks.
Prior to , Sunday afternoon games hosted in the Central Time Zone instead primarily kicked off at 2:00 pm ET/1:00 pm local time. The home games of the then-Baltimore Colts also typically kicked off at 2:00 pm ET due to Maryland's blue laws at the time. Since 1982, Central Time Zone games have primarily started at noon CT with the rest of the 1:00 pm ET early games. Colts home games also moved to 4:00 pm ET with the rest of the late afternoon games until the team's relocation to Indianapolis in 1984. Maryland's blue laws were later modified, allowing the Baltimore Ravens to play their home games at 1:00 pm ET since their 1996 inaugural season.
In , the NFL re-introduced a bye week to the schedule, which it had not had since 1966. Each team played sixteen regular season games over seventeen weeks. During the season, on a rotating basis, each team would have the weekend off. As a result, opening weekend was moved up to Labor Day weekend. The league had an odd number of teams (31) from to . During that period, at least one team had to be given a bye on any given week. For the season, the league experimented with the schedule by adding a second bye week for each team, resulting in an 18-week regular season. In 2001, the September 11th attacks resulted in the league postponing its Week 2 games, leading to another 18-week season. A seventeenth regular season game was added in .
Since the season, the league has scheduled a nationally televised regular season NFL Kickoff Game on the Thursday night after Labor Day, prior to the first Sunday of NFL games to kick off the season. The first one, featuring the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants, was held on September 5, 2002, largely to celebrate New York City's resilience in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Since 2004, the NFL has indicated that the opening game will normally be hosted by the defending Super Bowl champions as the official start of their title defense. Under this scheduling system, the earliest the regular season could begin is September 4, as it was in the , , and seasons, due to September 1 falling on a Monday, while the latest possible is September 10, as it was in the , , and seasons, and will be in the season, due to September 1 falling on a Tuesday.
Current scheduling formula AFC East AFC North AFC South AFC West 1st Patriots Steelers Jaguars Broncos 2nd Bills Ravens Texans Chargers 3rd Dolphins Bengals Colts Chiefs 4th Jets Browns Titans Raiders NFC East NFC North NFC South NFC West 1st Eagles Bears Panthers Seahawks 2nd Cowboys Packers Buccaneers Rams 3rd Commanders Vikings Falcons 49ers 4th Giants Lions Saints Cardinals