Philadelphia Coach Nick Sirianni lifts the Lombardi Trophy next to quarterback Jalen Hurts after the Eagles beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. (Matt Slocum/AP)
The NFL season will begin with a high-profile matchup of NFC East rivals.
The Philadelphia Eagles will host the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 4 at Lincoln Financial Field in the opening game of the 2025 season, the league announced Monday.
The Eagles, as the defending Super Bowl champions, will host the NFL’s traditional Thursday night season-opening game. The opener is scheduled for 8:20 p.m. Eastern and will be carried by NBC and Peacock.
The NFL said it also would announce other prominent games on the 2025 schedule later Monday and on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. The league said it would reveal the matchups for next season’s seven international games Tuesday.
🚨 EAGLES VS. COWBOYS TO KICK OFF THE 2025 SEASON 🚨#Kickoff2025 pic.twitter.com/PEHaVYvlxB
— NFL (@NFL) May 12, 2025
That includes three games in London with the New York Jets, Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars as the designated home teams; a game in Berlin with the Indianapolis Colts as the host team; a game in Madrid with the Miami Dolphins; a game in Dublin with the Pittsburgh Steelers; and a game in São Paulo with the Los Angeles Chargers.
The game in Brazil is set for Sept. 5 on the Friday night of the season’s opening weekend. It will be the second straight season that the NFL will play a Friday night game in Week 1 in São Paulo. Last year, the Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFL’s first game in Brazil.
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The NFL’s full schedule for the 2025 season is set to be released Wednesday night. The matchups already are known, based on the NFL’s scheduling formula and teams’ places in last season’s standings. But the dates of those matchups are not known until the schedule is released.
The league could have chosen the Washington Commanders as the Eagles’ opponent in the opener as a rematch of last season’s NFC championship game. That was won by the Eagles, 55-23, in Philadelphia. Instead, the NFL opted for another NFC East foe. The Cowboys will seek to rebound from a season in which they went 7-10 and missed the playoffs on the heels of three straight 12-5 seasons.
NFL Schedule Release Week is upon us. Here’s a look at what to expect this week, culminating with the full schedule release 8p ET on Wednesday. #breadcrumbs pic.twitter.com/hqvUSNqEhI
— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) May 11, 2025
The Cowboys were plagued by injuries last season, including a hamstring injury to quarterback Dak Prescott that required surgery and caused him to miss the final nine games and a shoulder injury to wide receiver CeeDee Lamb that forced him to miss the last two games. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones did not reach an agreement with Mike McCarthy, whose contract was expiring, to retain him as the team’s coach and surprisingly promoted offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to succeed McCarthy.
The opener will mark Schottenheimer’s NFL head coaching debut. It also will be the Cowboys debut for wide receiver George Pickens, just obtained in a trade with the Steelers.
It could be the Eagles’ first game without their trademark push-the-quarterback sneak. The NFL’s team owners could vote at their meeting next week in the Minneapolis area to ratify a modified proposal to prohibit pushing or pulling the ballcarrier anywhere on the field. That’s after the owners gave the tush push an at-least-temporary reprieve in early April at the annual league meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, by tabling a narrower proposal by the Packers to specifically ban the quarterback push play.
The Eagles have suffered through offseason attrition following their Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in February in New Orleans. Their offensive coordinator, Kellen Moore, left for a head coaching job with the New Orleans Saints. Key players such as pass rusher Josh Sweat, defensive tackle Milton Williams and guard Mekhi Becton exited in free agency. The Eagles traded safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Houston Texans. But quarterback Jalen Hurts and tailback Saquon Barkley remain in place, along with most of the rest of the team’s core.
Peacock will exclusively carry a Saturday night game in Week 17 of the 2025 season on Dec. 27, the league and NBC also announced Monday.