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.
Rams Clips
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.
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.
Charlie Young, a first-round pick of the Eagles in 1973, has died. He was 75.
Young was the sixth overall selection out of USC. After three years with the Eagles, Young played three years with the Rams, three years with the 49ers, and three years with the Seahawks.
In Philadelphia, Young was a Pro Bowler all three years. He also was a first-team All-Pro as a rookie, and a second-team All-Pro in 1974 and 1975.
He played in 187 regular-season games, with 142 starts. He caught 418 passes for 5,106 yards and 27 touchdowns. Young also appeared in 13 postseason games.
Young appeared in two Super Bowls. With the Rams, he appeared in Super Bowl XIV. He started Super Bowl XVI with the 49ers, which San Francisco won over Cincinnati.
In 2004, Young was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
We extend our condolences to Young’s family, friends, teammates, and colleagues.
The Rams have signed two of their draft picks.
Third-round offensive lineman Keagen Trost and sixth-round wide receiver CJ Daniels have both signed four-year deals with the team, per the NFL’s daily transaction report. Three other picks, including first-round quarterback Ty Simpson, have yet to sign with the team.
Trost played at Indiana State and Wake Forest before transferring to Missouri for the 2025 season. He started 13 games at right tackle during his only season at the school.
Daniels finished up his college time at Miami in 2025 with 50 catches for 557 yards and seven touchdowns. He played at Liberty and LSU over the previous five years.
One of the biggest surprises during the 2026 NFL draft happened when the Rams used the 13th overall pick on quarterback Ty Simpson. Then came the twist: Rams coach Sean McVay seemed sullen, disinterested, and/or disengaged when he and G.M. Les Snead met with reporters to discuss the decision.
What did Simpson think of McVay’s press-conference demeanor from draft night?
“I didn’t really see it,” Simpson said Saturday, via Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times.
“I know one thing though,” Simpson said. “I know Coach McVay has been in contact and he’s super fired up. And I’m super excited. . . . I know that I couldn’t have asked for a better situation, not only with the best player in the league in front of me but the best coach in the league at the helm.”
McVay admitted the next day that he was “grumpy” during the press conference. Chris Simms, who saw McVay during a recent visit to an Arsenal match in London, said recently on PFT Live that McVay told him the vibe “had to do with some sort of volatile situation that happened before they went out there,” and that “there was some little argument about something.”
It’s hard to imagine Simpson wasn’t aware of one of the most talked-about moments from the first night of the draft, especially since it directly related to him. Then again, maybe Simpson chose his words carefully. Maybe he didn’t “see” it. Surely, someone told him about it.
Or maybe he did see it. And maybe he was asked not to discuss it. That’s what happened when he had a “secret meeting” with McVay before the draft.
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.
