With Christmas Day falling on a Sunday in 2022, most of the Week 16 matchups will be played on Saturday with three featured games on Dec. 25.
The week before, it will be the opposite. The NFL will have a Saturday triple-header on Dec. 17, with five games in a pool that are eligible to be selected.
The five games are Dolphins at Bills, Ravens at Browns, Colts at Vikings, Falcons at Saints, and Giants at Commanders.
The three games selected will be televised on NFL Network starting at 1 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. ET, and 8:15 p.m. ET. The league will determine the specific matchups at a later date.
The two games that do not get picked will be on Sunday, Dec. 18.
In some ways, it could be advantageous to be one of the Saturday games in Week 15 because it would give the team a full week to practice in Week 16. But the short week would just come earlier in preparing for the first Saturday opponent.
Last year, the NFL announced on Nov. 23 that the Patriots-Colts and Browns-Raiders matchups had been taken from the pool to play on Saturday in Week 15. But only the Colts and Patriots ended up playing that Saturday, with the Browns-Raiders game getting moved to Monday due to Cleveland’s COVID-19 outbreak.