Cowboys-Giants to open ‘Sunday Night Football’ season on NBC

Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The first coordinated schedule leak of the week promotes a big time matchup between two of the NFL’s most iconic brands.

On Monday morning, the NFL announced the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants will face off during the first Sunday Night Football game of the year on NBC. The game will kickoff at the standard time of 8:20 p.m. ET on September 13.

The announcement comes ahead of the full schedule release later this week, and will surely be the first of many strategic leaks across every NFL partner as broadcasters head into Upfront week, a time when much of their NFL ad inventory will be sold to advertisers. NBC’s Upfront begins on Monday morning, and Cowboys-Giants will surely be a centerpiece of that presentation.

As usual, NBC will also broadcast the NFL Kickoff game during Thursday of Week 1. That game, which will feature the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, has not yet been announced. However, with the Giants playing on Sunday night during Week 1, there is one fewer home opponent left on the Seahawks’ schedule to choose from.

One wrinkle to Week 1 this season will be the NFL’s first-ever game from Australia, which is set to be played on a Wednesday and feature the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. That game is reportedly headed to Netflix, though there has not yet been an official announcement.