Winners and Losers of the NFL Schedule Release

Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images

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At last, our long national nightmare is over. The full NFL schedule is at our disposal. That means we can finally do one of our favorite annual columns here at Awful Announcing: Winners and Losers of the NFL Schedule Release.

For us weirdos that cover sports media as an occupation, the NFL schedule release is something akin to how the NFL Draft sickos must feel when the last week in April rolls around. It’s an opportunity for us to look at exactly where each network stands in terms of the quality of their package, the value they’re getting for their multibillion-dollar rights fees, and sometimes even the health of their overall relationship with the NFL.

The schedule is both the carrot and the stick for the league; it can bequeath great games to the broadcast partners it favors, and send a message to other partners by giving them a weak schedule.

So without further ado, here are the winners and losers of this year’s schedule release.

Winners: CBS and Fox

In many ways, the 2026-27 schedule feels like a return to normalcy for both CBS and Fox. With few exceptions, CBS’s package skews heavily towards the big dogs in the AFC, and Fox’s package skews towards the NFC’s heavy-hitters.

CBS will feature four Kansas City Chiefs games and is certainly putting prayers up for Patrick Mahomes’ ACL and LCL. Not to mention, CBS gets the Dallas Cowboys twice, a Buffalo Bills-New England Patriots game, and a smattering of other top teams for its 4:25 p.m. ET national windows.

“As far as we’re concerned, the more of the Chiefs we can get, the better,” CBS Sports exec Dan Weinberg told Sports Business Journal.

Fox’s national windows feel very Fox, as in, you’re going to see a lot of the NFC’s best teams. The Cowboys will make three appearances as will the Green Bay Packers. Meanwhile, the Eagles, 49ers, Bears, Lions, and Commanders all make two appearances a piece.

This was intentional from the network. Per SBJ, Fox wanted “an emphasis on being the home of the NFC,” and certainly got that.

Aside from the quality of teams in the national-window games, CBS and Fox came out on top this year because of the additional standalone windows both received from the NFL earlier this week. Fox, as we learned on Monday, struck a deal for an international game in Week 10 and a Saturday game in Week 15. CBS will also air a Saturday game in Week 15.

For Fox in particular, the strength of its schedule was likely a relief considering the NFL could’ve easily chosen to be vindictive about the network’s behind-the-scenes political maneuvering targeting the NFL. That clearly did not happen.

With all of the talk about Sunday afternoon being diminished because of the NFL creating more standalone windows, it seems like there was an emphasis on putting high-quality games at 4:25 p.m. ET each and every Sunday.

Draws: ESPN and Prime Video

Both ESPN’s Monday Night Football package and Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football package have some high highs and low lows, which puts each broadcaster firmly in the “Draw” category.

ESPN, for instance, has great matchups like Cowboys-Eagles, Eagles-Bears, Bears-Seahawks, Patriots-Chiefs, and Cowboys-Seahawks, but they also have some duds like Falcons-Saints and Panthers-Buccaneers.

Similarly, Prime Video has a handful of high-quality games like Lions-Bills, Seahawks-Broncos, Patriots-Bears, and Chiefs-Rams, but also some games that could end up being one-sided like Panthers-Packers. Luckily, most of Prime Video’s weaker games on paper are divisional rivalries: Steelers-Browns, Commanders-Giants, Colts-Texans might not be top-crust games, but will certainly be meaningful and have potential playoff implications.

Both schedules seem to be just right in terms of quality; mostly desirable games with a few weaker weeks here and there. Neither broadcaster should have much to complain about.

Loser: NBC

If there has to be a loser, NBC’s Sunday Night Football would probably be the package that underperformed its billing the most. As the premier NFL package, Sunday Night Football is rightly held to a higher standard than its peers. And while NBC got its fair share of quality games, a lot of the matchups look underwhelming on paper.

Tell me if any of these games feel like Sunday Night Football-caliber matchups: Lions-Panthers, Ravens-Falcons, Buccaneers-Bears. Sure, we’re picking nits here, but this is the top package in the league. There’s also a lot of question marks down the stretch, perhaps by design given those games can be flexed.

“We always really want to focus on the beginning part of the season and how do we get out of the gate in a big way,” NBC Sports exec Justin Byczek told SBJ.

The strategy makes sense. There are protocols in place to ensure bad games don’t end up on Sunday Night Football late in the year. But the Steelers, Vikings, Jaguars, and Cowboys all feature in late-season games. All of those teams could find themselves out of the playoff picture during that period. And the NFL doesn’t want to use its flex-scheduling procedures every week.

In NBC’s defense, they get the Cowboys three times (the first two early in the season), and the Chiefs twice (thrice if you count Thanksgiving). The network was also able to snag an extra Saturday game in Week 17 with teams TBD. And there are plenty of good matchups, too. Chiefs-Seahawks, Bills-Packers, Eagles-49ers, and of course Chiefs-Bills on Thanksgiving.

But given some of the duds thrown in there, it seems like NBC got the short end of the stick out of the five primary NFL partners this season.

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