We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
Seventeen weeks from tonight, the 2026 NFL season will begin. It will reportedly begin the same way the 2025 NFL season ended.
Jordan Schultz reports that the Seahawks will host the Patriots on Wednesday, September 9. It will be the first game of the next regular season.
If the report is accurate, it’ll be the first Week 1 Super Bowl rematch in a decade. The 2016 season began with an immediate rematch of Super Bowl 50, which the Broncos won over the Panthers. Denver won the second game, 21-20, thanks to a missed 50-yard field goal from Carolina kicker Graham Gano in the final 10 seconds of the game.
Seattle won Super Bowl LX. The game didn’t seem nearly as close as the 29-13 final score would suggest. It felt, frankly, like a 1970s-style Super Bowl suffocation; if they had played 10 times, the Patriots likely wouldn’t have won once.
Now, the Patriots will reportedly get an immediate chance to do it again. And not at a neutral site, but in Seattle. On the night the Seahawks hang a banner, a ritual the Patriots know very well.
Given that five of Seattle’s nine home opponents for 2026 have already been committed elsewhere for Week 1 (49ers, Rams, Giants, Cowboys, Chiefs), only four options remain for Week 1: the Cardinals, Chargers, Bears, and Patriots. The official announcement of the opening game will come by 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday night.
Patriots safety Kevin Byard, who joined the team earlier this year, has been reunited with coach Mike Vrabel. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Byard said he sees no differences between the Vrabel who worked with Byard in Tennessee and the Vrabel who is moving forward amid a controversy that continues to generate periodic developments.
“[He’s] the same old guy, honestly,” Byard said, via Karen Guregian of MassLive.com. “He’s the same guy that I recognize from being back in Tennessee, a guy that’s full of energy, coaching the entire team, running back and forth from offense, defense, special teams. I don’t see a difference whatsoever.”
On Tuesday, Byard said Vrabel got involved in punt drills.
“He’s the loudest voice on the field,” Byard said. “Just coaching the guys, making sure guys technique is good, but at the same time, praising them when they do very well. . . . It’s definitely the same guy I recognize from Tennessee.”
Receiver Romeo Doubs, who hasn’t previously played for Vrabel, is equally impressed.
“I love him,” Doubs said. “Very energetic dude. A player’s coach, because I know at some point in his career, he’s played some really solid football here.
“It’s rare when you get a head coach who obviously was a player in this league, and worked his way through the ropes to be a really solid head coach. . . . I’m just very blessed and fortunate to be around him.”
For Vrabel and the Patriots, the best outcome is for everything unrelated to football to calm down. As of three weeks ago, the situation reached a tipping point that impacted the team, given that Vrabel missed the third day of the draft. If the drip-drip of photo and video drops from TMZ and the New York Post slows to a trickle, and if the other party to the situation doesn’t do a sit-down with Oprah (or whoever), there’s a chance this will all be fading away by the time Week 1 rolls around.
Patriots seventh-round linebacker Quintayvious Hutchins was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery after an incident in a Boston College dorm on Tuesday night.
WBZ reports, via a police report, that officers were called to a dorm to intervene in an argument between a man and a woman. The report cites a witness account that Hutchins grabbed the woman’s neck during the argument and that they were also pushing each other.
“We are aware of the report involving Quintayvious Hutchins,” the Patriots said in a statement. “We take these matters very seriously and are in the process of gathering additional information. We will not have further comment at this time.”
The police report also notes that the woman did not want pictures of her neck taken and said she was “OK” in her own statement.
Hutchins, who played at Boston College, was arraigned on Wednesday morning and released on his own recognizance after pleading not guilty.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
