2026 NFL schedule: League official explains this year's 'it' team, challenges of international games, more

One of my favorite questions each year is asking what were some of the more unique challenges to this year's schedule? And what I mean by that is, I remember several years ago when the Pope visited and there were a couple of places where they asked not to have a home game while the Pope is in town or obviously the Taylor Swift concerts from a couple of years ago. Clearly there are challenges to putting together this incredible schedule. Anything really unique like that that stood in the way this year?

"I think there are maybe three things specifically. One is more international games (nine) than we've ever been played before, including our first games in Rio, Australia and Paris. Those are games and big moments for us as a league, and we have to schedule each of those in the right way.

We then also have some exciting new windows here. Not only the Australia game in Week 1, which we've done the last few years in Brazil, but the Thanksgiving Eve window, which we're super excited about with Packers-Rams. But then you really get to an even more specific answer to your question. … One of the really cool things is with how competitive the NFC West and the AFC West are."

Yes. And they play each other!

"So now you add a lot of fun additional games. You look at that Sunday night Week 7 Kansas City-Seattle. A Rams-Chiefs game. You look Week 2 with a Denver at San Francisco. You look late in the year with Amazon and Week 15 San Francisco-Chargers.

"What you will also see maybe is a few more good games that are at 4 o'clock with other good games, just because we have so many great games from West Coast time zone teams. It just feels like maybe even the four o'clock windows are gonna be even stronger than they've been before just because of how many good games we have between West Coast teams."

That's a fantastic point. That answers my question perfectly, actually. And since we're here, for so many recent years, the AFC was loaded with so many great teams — and thus great games — and it felt like the few good NFC games we got for a while were when they were playing AFC teams. When it was Chiefs and Ravens and Bills and Bengals all at the top. But now we have Bears-Packers that has been renewed. We have Rams-Seahawks that's huge. You mentioned the Niners, right? All that. Are we seeing an NFC comeback right now?

"I think the beautiful thing about the league, and I don't think I could stress this enough, JJ, that when we did the new broadcast deals in 2012 and we got away from the visiting team dictating what game was on what package … in that construct, all the games started either in one package or another between CBS and Fox and then we could pull a certain number of games out to get to Sunday night or Monday night or Thursday night. When we did the deals in '21, where literally every game's a free agent and we can think about 272 games getting into the right home. And yes, Fox has to have more NFC teams and CBS has more AFC teams, but it just gives us so much more flexibility.

And when you look at that and how it comes to life. On CBS there are four Giants games, three Bears, three Lions, four Vikings and three 49ers. But on the other side look at how many games swing the other way. Three Ravens, four Bengals, five Chargers that are going from CBS to FOX.

We think that flexibility allows us to get the best game into each of the best windows, and helps us from a fan perspective to get the best games into those markets every week."

And with those teams come great young quarterbacks. So speaking of, will the country see No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza in any standalone windows this season?

"That's a fascinating question because it starts with when he might play. And the Raiders had a really busy offseason. They added a lot of talent. And they added a quarterback and a pretty darn good one historically in Kirk Cousins. So as we go into the year right now, the Raiders don't have any national windows scheduled. They do have a preseason game on Thursday, August 20th. So the world may see Fernando there.

But look if the Raiders play their way on, maybe you're seeing Kirk Cousins with a Raiders game that gets flexed into a different window or moved on Sunday afternoon to a bigger window, or maybe it is Fernando at some point. But going into the year, they don't have any national window games. But we always see teams emerge in a way that we don't expect in May."

With Patrick Mahomes coming off the ACL, how did y'all handle him? Obviously you have the Chiefs on Monday Night in Week 1 against Denver. What's the thought on the Chiefs and Mahomes?

"We made our schedule and we don't know anything more than what you read. And every player's different. More on background, but as someone who's torn both of his ACLs, you never know. (Hans was a four-year football player at Princeton.) But look, Kansas City's a story. And Andy Reid's a heck of a coach. It's a great rivalry with the Broncos and so we didn't want to try to guess or otherwise, we thought let's create the best schedule. And Kansas City is such a popular team these days that we said, let's create the best schedule and certainly believe he'll be playing Week 1. And they have Justin Fields if he's not. We really tried to create the best schedule of just building off the Chiefs being a national team and with all the success they've had, but we certainly expect and hope that Patrick's playing Week 1."

How about for the 49ers and Rams? They're playing in Melbourne in Week 1, which I believe has to be the longest travel for any team as the league continues to grow internationally. They wouldn't have a bye in Week 2 so what's the plan for both of those teams?

"Having been somebody that's lived in Australia and been back probably close to 10 to 12 times since, it's an interesting place because you actually leave and come back in the same day. So you leave the day going, but you sort of pick up time coming here. Certainly, obviously going down and playing them on Thursday of Week 1 and moving everything early a day to give a little extra time to get back was where we started with the schedule. And other than that, making sure both teams are at home in Week 2.

And then it was, let's get into the schedule and let's make sure we do what we always do and try to do for every team is make sure it's a balanced schedule, that we're looking at travel, that we're not ping ponging teams across the country and we try to be competitively fair with their road trips where we try to schedule in a very equitable way. Their schedules obviously look a little bit different to one another. San Francisco has the additional game in Mexico City with their bye in Week 9. The Rams have the Thanksgiving Eve game on a Wednesday and then play that next Thursday."

So on that Thanksgiving Eve game, the Rams and Packers are not playing the Sunday before, right? They're both on byes in Week 11.

"Right. The Packers and Rams will not be playing on the Sunday before.

I know it is cliché, but for all 32 teams and for all our partners, I'm sure we're not perfect in that, but we try pretty hard to get as close as we can. I'm sure if you ask every different club, there may be one thing or two things that they'd like to change about the schedule, but we really try to be as fair and put a lot of effort into trying to be precise and focused on making sure we deliver to each club a fair and equitable schedule."

A few other interesting tidbits from this year's schedule

• Along with the Raiders, there are four other teams that are not currently scheduled to appear in a standalone window. The Dolphins, Jets, Cardinals and Titans join the Raiders there. Of course, any or all of these teams can play their way into primetime due to flex scheduling.
• Last year at this time, the Patriots had three national window games. This year, they have nine. When we say "national window," that includes the 4:25 p.m. ET games that go to 100 percent of the country. The Super Bowl champion Seahawks have eight. And the NFL clearly believes in the Jaguars, who get six.
• Speaking of Jacksonville, I learned the Jags actually asked the league for extended time away from home. The team is already playing in a reduced-capacity stadium in 2026 before playing in Orlando in 2027 as the stadium undergoes a massive renovation. The team was looking for about a month, including its back-to-back in London, where it could vacate the stadium so significant progress could be made on the stadium. Let's hope for good weather.
• There are nine teams currently scheduled to have multiple short weeks this season.
• There are games slated for six of the seven days of the week. For the first time since 1948, the NFL is playing games across two different Wednesdays in the same season. And never say never, but it looks like the next time the league can schedule a game on a Tuesday will be Christmas 2029.