The NFL will reveal the full schedule for the 2026 season on Thursday night, but they have announced one marquee Week 1 game on Monday.
The first Sunday Night Football matchup of the season will see the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to face the Giants on NBC on September 13. It will be the eighth time in 15 seasons that the two NFC East clubs have faced each other in Week 1.
It’s the second straight season that the Cowboys will find themselves in a featured game in the opening week. They were in Philadelphia for the first game of the 2025 season. We also know that the Cowboys will be in Rio to face the Ravens in Week 3 and they will be at home for their customary Thanksgiving game.
The NFL plans to announce all of this year’s international matchups on Wednesday and there will likely be a trickle of other games to prime the pump for Thursday’s big reveal.
Rookie minicamps routinely include more than rookies. In Minnesota, veteran quarterback Cooper Rush will participate on a tryout basis.
The team has announced 57 attendees for the weekend session. Of that number, 23 have been invited to the weekend practices on a tryout basis.
Rush, 32, has played in 42 regular-season games with 16 starts. He has a 9-7 record.
The Ravens cut him earlier this year, after making Tyler Huntley the primary backup to Lamar Jackson. Before that, Rush spent seven seasons with the Cowboys, starting eight games in 2024 and five in 2022.
Although the Vikings have four quarterbacks on the roster, they need arms for the rookie minicamp. And they neither drafted nor signed as an undrafted free agent any rookie quarterbacks.
Joining Rush on a tryout basis will be Aidan Bouman. His father is former NFL quarterback Todd Bouman, who played for the Vikings, Saints, and Jaguars.
The NFL will announce the full 2026 schedule on Thursday, May 14, but the league’s international slate of games will be revealed earlier than the domestic ones.
The matchups for this year’s international games will be announced on NFL Network at 9 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday.
Nine international games are on the docket this year, but the matchups for two of them have already been announced. The 49ers and Rams will meet up in Melbourne in Week 1 and the Cowboys will face the Ravens in Rio in Week 3.
One team in each of the other seven games is already known. The Jaguars will play in London twice and the Commanders will be involved in the city’s third game. The 49ers will be in Mexico City, the Falcons will be in Madrid, the Lions will be in Munich and the Saints will take part in the NFL’s first game in Paris.
Cowboys safety Caleb Downs has the top-selling jersey of all rookies. For those who were expecting a jersey displaying No. 18 to eventually show up, they’ll be in for a surprise.
Downs has already shifted to No. 13, via Tommy Yarrish of the Cowboys’ official website.
At rookie minicamp, Downs wore No. 18. He’ll wear the new number for OTAs.
But buyers beware. Yarrish notes that the current number is “subject to change and still could be different between now and the beginning of the regular season.”
Downs wore No. 2 at Ohio State. That number currently has been issued to cornerback Cobie Durant, who signed a one-year contract with the team in March. It’s possible Downs will work out a deal with Durant — or that the Cowboys will exercise their prerogative to reclaim the number.
If Downs is going to change from No. 13 to No. 2, here’s hoping it happens soon. If Durant doesn’t return in 2027, Downs could make the change from No. 13 to No. 2, rendering obsolete any and all jerseys purchased in 2026.
Colts wide receiver Josh Downs will be looking for the date of one game in particular when the 2026 schedule is released later this month.
The Colts will be hosting the Cowboys at some point during the regular season and that means that Downs will have a chance to play against his brother. Safety Caleb Downs was the 11th overall pick of this year’s draft and his early intel about the Cowboys’ plans for him suggest the two brothers will be seeing a lot of each other.
“He told me if he goes to the Cowboys, he’s playing nickel,” Josh Downs said, via James Boyd of TheAthletic.com. “So, that’s like head-to-head all game. I was like, ‘that’s interesting.’ So then he got drafted, I was like ‘you know we play next year’ and he got all hyped. It’s all fun and games, but you know I gotta let him know he’s the little brother in the situation.”
The Cowboys will be in Rio to play the Ravens in Week 3 and Week 18 is reserved for divisional games, but the matchup of the Downs brothers could take place at any other point in the regular season.
