The NFL began playing a Black Friday game in 2023. It now plays on Christmas Day — regardless of the day of the week it falls on — and has an extra weekday game on the first week of the season.
The NFL is looking at other unique windows to play standalone games.
In 2026, the league could have a Thanksgiving Eve game, which likely necessitates two teams coming off a bye for a Wednesday night matchup.
“We’re actively looking at that window,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution. “We think when we look at the calendar and look at other natural nights that we could aggregate and serve our fans, and deliver a unique-size audience, that’s a night that jumps out to us. Thanksgiving is about all about football, family and friends increasingly, and we think we’re a big part of that. You saw that last year with some of the numbers on \[Thanksgiving Day\] and really throughout with great numbers on Black Friday, too. So we think this is a natural way we can continue to grow Thanksgiving.
“We think that’s a super interesting one as far as an opportunity for this season.”
The NFL wants as many standalone games as it can. If it plays Thanksgiving Eve, the league will have at least seven standalone games that week.
“There’s some opportunities to play in other windows and what we’ve seen how uniquely — particularly on certain parts of the year — how the NFL can bring people together, and Thanksgiving being a great example of that,” Schroeder said. “And our ability to bring people together on that special weekend, something like Thanksgiving Eve becomes a really exciting opportunity to stoke our fans more — to give them a game and a window, which we’ve seen as we’ve done on Black Friday and some of these other places — we’ve seen that growth and that’s the best part.
“We can look at the metrics, and our fans will speak to us. We are going to continue to look at those other windows throughout the year on top of maybe those early windows or late-season Saturdays and see how the market comes back to us as well with what we think is the best possible way to deploy those games are. So we think it’ll be an exciting edition to the 2026 schedule.”
The NFL continues to play games in more windows, and one day soon, it will have even more inventory with a likely 18-game schedule. Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban once warned the NFL that: “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, addressing a question about an 18-game regular-season schedule, responded Tuesday, saying, “[When the ducks quack, feed ‘em](https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/jerry-jones-has-the-definitive-response-to-mark-cuban-when-the-ducks-quack-feed-em).”
As long as the fans have an appetite, the NFL will continue to deliver more games in more windows.