While the Dallas Cowboys may be in the midst of one of the NFL’s quieter offseasons, make no mistake, they are still very much America’s Team.
So it hardly came as a surprise that as the league began to roll out its 2025 regular-season schedule, one of the first matchups featured the Cowboys.
As the defending Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles will have the honors of hosting the annual NFL Kickoff Game, which marks the official start of the regular season. And although the Eagles’ schedule possesses plenty of high profile opponents, the league’s schedule-makers went with the most obvious, selecting Dallas over the likes of the Washington Commanders, Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams.
As such, the Eagles will host the Cowboys at Lincoln Financial Field on Sept. 4 — a Thursday night football game that doesn’t technically fall under the Thursday Night Football banner. The 8:20 p.m. ET kickoff will be broadcast to a national audience on NBC and Peacock, with Mike Tirico making the announcement on Monday’s episode of Today.
Mike Tirico announces on ‘Today’ that the Philadelphia Eagles will host the Dallas Cowboys in the 2025 NFL Kickoff Game to open the regular season on Sept. 4. pic.twitter.com/5dlz5Aoa0u
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 12, 2025
Tirico — who will call the game alongside Cris Collinsworth as a part of NBC’s Sunday Night Football booth — noted that it’s been 25 years since Philadelphia faced Dallas in Week 1. The Eagles’ home game continues the league’s longstanding tradition of having the defending Super Bowl champions host the first game of the regular season.
But while Philadelphia’s Super Bowl title defense will be one of the NFL’s biggest storylines this season, there will be no shortage of attention — per usual — focused on the Cowboys.
Coming off a disappointing 7-10 season, Dallas will look to get back to its winning ways as quarterback Dak Prescott returns from a hamstring injury that ended his 2024 campaign after just eight games and Brian Schottenheimer takes over as the Cowboys’ new head coach. But despite Dallas’ offseason initially being so lackluster that Kyle Brandt recently called the Cowboys the “Tupperware of NFL teams,” they made one of their trademark splashes last week by acquiring wide receiver George Pickens from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
As for the rest of Dallas’ offseason, there will be plenty of focus on Micah Parsons’ contract status as the All-Pro pass-rusher enters the final year of his rookie deal. Extension or no extension, however, there will be plenty to talk about with regard to the Cowboys come Sept. 4 — and the defending Super Bowl champions will be there too.