At a time when NFL rules regarding game broadcasts have taken a back seat to the importance of flexibility to program a growing number of standalone windows, there’s at least one bright line.
Per the NFL, the absolute maximum number of prime-time appearances for any one team is eight.
More specifically, a team can be scheduled for up to seven prime-time games. That team then can be flexed into an eighth prime-time game.
This rule becomes relevant to the Rams in 2026. They have seven prime-time games on the schedule as published. In Week 17, their game at the Buccaneers could be selected for Saturday night on Peacock. Also, L.A.'s Week 18 game against the Seahawks could be selected for the final game of the season (or, in theory, the Saturday night window on ESPN).
In the end, it would be Week 17 or Week 18 — but not both.
Unless the rule changes. As the NFL focuses more and more on creating the most compelling configurations of games possible, eventually the rules will be there are no rules.
Rams Clips
The Rams have seven prime-time games in 2026. They could still have an eighth. And a ninth.
In Week 17, two games will land on Saturday. NBC and Peacock will have a game at 4:30 p.m. ET. Peacock will have a game at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Four games have been identified as potential candidates to slide to Saturday: Commanders at Jaguars, Chiefs at Chargers, Broncos at Patriots, Rams at Buccaneers. Eventually, two will be tabbed to move.
It’s possible, given the inclusion of Rams-Buccaneers in the quartet of options, that their game will be parked at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday.
In Week 18, all games are fair game to be picked for the final game of the regular season. If Seahawks-Rams has the NFC West title or the No. 1 seed on the line, it becomes a prime candidate to cap the season.
Once upon a time, there was a limit to the number of prime-time games a team could play. Of course, there were other rules, too; initially, all teams played on Thursday after playing on Sunday. (We’ve asked the league whether there’s currently a hard limit on the number of prime-time games a team can play.)
Now, it’s about programming the best possible games, as often as possible. Which is generally good. The habit of giving all teams at least one standalone showcase under the lights has yielded to the practical value of going back to the deepest wells with the best water.
The message to the bad teams is abundantly clear: Don’t suck.
UPDATE 4:22 p.m. ET: Per the NFL, the current rule is that a team may be scheduled for seven prime-time games and flexed into an eighth.
When 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan aired grievances at the annual NFL meetings in March about his team getting the short straw for a long trip to Australia to face the Rams — at (as Shanahan insists) the specific request of the Rams — Shanahan held out hope for a nugget of consideration when the 49ers return to the United States.
Shanahan wanted his team’s Week 2 game to happen on Monday night.
That isn’t happening for the 49ers. Instead, the Rams will get the extra day to adjust and recover after playing in Australia. They host the Giants on Monday night, September 21.
Only one of the two Australia teams could have gotten the extra day. Still, some will wonder whether Shanahan’s public gripes prompted a little twist of the knife by the league office. At times, the powers-that-be can have a very long memory — and they sometimes don’t react well to public complaints.
To his credit, Shanahan wasn’t bashful about speaking his truth. And if he thinks the decision to give the Rams and not the 49ers the extra day to get ready for Week 2 traces to his willingness to say when he thinks, Shanahan should say that, too.
In 2025, the Seahawks and Rams were arguably the best two teams in the NFL. They met three times.
In 2026, they won’t meet at all until Week 16.
The first game happens in Seattle on Christmas Day. Two weeks later, the rematch will take place at SoFi Stadium to end the regular season
By late December, who knows how both teams will look? Chances are that they’ll both be in contention. And maybe, like last year, their two games will have a direct impact not only on the NFC West title buy the No. 1 seed in the conference.
However it plays out, here’s hoping that the series, the division, and the top seed won’t come down to whether someone calls the league office to point out that a key play possibly should get a second look — in order to see whether its was a forward pass or a lateral.
The Seahawks are the defending Super Bowl champions, but the Rams were given the most primetime games in 2026.
The Rams’ seven primetime games tied the all-time record for most primetime games. The 2025 Chiefs and the 2023 Bills also played in seven primetime games.
The Packers, Chiefs, Bills and Seahawks each have six primetime games, and the Cowboys, Eagles, Bears, Patriots and 49ers each have five primetime games.
The Vikings, Giants, Steelers, Ravens, Lions and Texans all play four primetime games. The Jaguars, Broncos, Bengals, Falcons, Panthers, Chargers and Bucs each have three, and the Colts, Saints and Browns all have one.
The Rams’ seven primetime games are:
Week 1: Thursday, Sept. 10, vs. 49ers, 8:35 p.m. ET, Netflix (Australia)
Week 2: Monday, Sept. 21, vs. Giants, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN
Week 3: Sunday, Sept. 27, at Broncos, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC
Week 5: Monday, Oct. 12, vs. Bills, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN
Week 12: Wednesday, Nov. 25, vs. Packers, 8 p.m. ET, Netflix
Week 13: Thursday, Dec. 3, vs. Chiefs, 8:15 p.m. ET, Prime
Week 16: Friday, Dec. 25, at Seahawks (Christmas), 8:15 p.m. ET, Fox
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.
The Rams and Seahawks played three nail-biters during the 2025 season and the NFL is banking on another one on Christmas night.
The matchup of NFC West teams will cap a three-game slate on Christmas this year. The Friday night game on December 25 will take place in Seattle and it will be broadcast by Fox.
Los Angeles won 21-19 at home last November, but lost 38-37 in overtime in Seattle later in the regular season. The final meeting between the clubs came in the NFC Championship Game and was a 31-27 Seahawks win.
Netflix will kick off the day’s games with a doubleheader that starts with the Packers visiting the Bears at 1 p.m. ET. The Bills will be in Denver at 4:30 p.m. ET in a rematch of last season’s divisional round game that the Broncos won in overtime.
With Christmas Eve falling on a Thursday, there will also be a game on Amazon Prime Video that night. The Eagles will travel to Houston to face the Texans, so all four games around the Christmas holiday will feature matchups of teams that were in the playoffs last season.
The NFL announced the matchups for its first Thanksgiving Eve game and all three Thanksgiving games ahead of Thursday night’s schedule reveal, so the only thing left to announce for the three-day holiday spread of games was the Black Friday matchup.
That game will feature the Broncos visiting the Steelers in a game that will start at 3 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.
It will be the first time that either franchise has played a Black Friday game. The NFL first held a game on the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league is considering ways to add a second game.
That is what they’ve done with the Thanksgiving Eve game. It will involve the Packers visiting the Rams on Wednesday night in a game broadcast by Netflix.
Thanksgiving’s schedule will start in Detroit as usual. The Lions will host the Bears at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and the Eagles will visit the Cowboys on Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET. Thursday’s action will conclude with the Chiefs in Buffalo to face the Bills at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
Last month, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced legislation aimed at ensuring free, over-the-air access by citizens of a given state to all nationally-televised games involving the teams headquartered there. Naturally, then, she was dismayed to learn that the Packers-Rams game on Thanksgiving Eve will be streamed exclusively by Netflix.
“As the cost of just about everything continues to rise, the NFL is once again asking Wisconsinites to spend their hard-earned money on another streaming service,” Baldwin said. “Enough is enough. My ‘For the Fans Act’ would stop this exact scenario and prevent Wisconsin families from being forced to pay for Netflix just to watch the Packers play this Thanksgiving.”
The development comes at a time when the NFL is facing unprecedented political pressure, on multiple fronts. The Department of Justice is investigating whether the NFL has exceeded its current broadcast antitrust exemption. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, through the op-ed pages of his Wall Street Journal and the back channels of government, has pushed the question of whether the existing exemption should be scrapped.
In Wisconsin, the Packers-Rams game to be played the night before Thanksgiving will be televised by network affiliates in Green Bay and Milwaukee. The rest of WI will be SOL, absent a Netflix subscription. That same dynamic will apply to any Packers games on Prime Video.
Whether the For the Fans Act goes anywhere remains to be seen. Regardless, the complaints about requiring fans to pay to watch standalone NFL games is here to stay, until further notice.
The teams involved in the NFL’s first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game have been set.
Netflix will televise a game between the Packers and the Rams on Wednesday, November 25. The NFL also plans to hold three games on Thanksgiving and at least one game is expected to be played on Black Friday.
This is the second Rams game to be announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal. They will also face the 49ers in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1. That game will also be broadcast by Netflix.
It is the first Packers game to be revealed so far. If history is any guide, it will be one of multiple standalone games for Green Bay.
