The Dallas Cowboys are the only NFL franchise that can eke out a pair of consecutive seven-win seasons and still manage to be rewarded with a national TV appearance nearly every week. Last season, Jerry Jones’ charges went 7-9-1, with the tie coming against Green Bay in Week 4. If you squint hard enough, that string of odd numbers marked an improvement over the 2024-25 campaign, when Dallas put together a similarly meh 7-10 record.
Despite the lackluster results of the past two seasons, the Cowboys this fall will appear in as many as 11 coast-to-coast telecasts, a slate that includes six primetime games and another five dates in the marquee 4:20 p.m. ET showcase on CBS and Fox. Joining Dallas in the NFL’s luxury suite are the Kansas City Chiefs, which saw their 10-year playoff streak go up in smoke with a Dec. 14 loss to their AFC West rivals in Los Angeles. Making matters worse, Patrick Mahomes blew out his ACL during the game’s final drive.
As it so happens, the Cowboys and Chiefs were featured in last season’s biggest regular-season draw, a Thanksgiving Day showdown that averaged a record 57.3 million viewers on CBS. All told, Mahomes & Co. appeared in four of the five highest-rated games, and while the recovery time for a catastrophic knee injury varies from patient to patient, word around the campfire suggests that the 30-year-old quarterback will be under center when KC opens the season against the Broncos on Monday Night Football.
The Chiefs’ national TV schedule is as overstuffed as is Dallas’, and while the NFL’s top ratings drivers will not meet up again in 2026-27, both teams are expected to continue their dominance over the Nielsen charts. In keeping with the shared media spotlight, this season’s slate also reflects a renewed interest in the NFC passing game, one that follows years of garish performances by the likes of Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow.
What follows is a roster of the biggest must-see matchups of the fall NFL campaign. For advertisers, these are the games you need to buy if you’re going to convince millions of people to bail on their current phone or insurance plan; for the rest of us who don’t have $1.2 million to spend on a 30-second TV spot, think of this as a list of the matchups that are most likely to remind you why you fell in love with football in the first place.
Top Projected NFL Broadcasts, 2026-27
1) Eagles at Cowboys (Fox Thanksgiving Day window, Nov. 26) 57.9M viewers
Watching the Dallas Cowboys on TV after loading up on Tryptophan is an American tradition unlike any other, and the cost of tapping into the nation’s psyche mere hours before the carnage of Black Friday kicks off is predictably dear. With an average unit cost for an in-game spot creeping ever nearer to the $2 million mark, Fox is expected to celebrate the most indulgent of holidays with a feast of marketing dough.
While the Cowboys’ annual Thanksgiving spectacular has been the NFL’s biggest regular-season game for as about long as anyone can remember, it’s probably worth noting that there’s no guarantee that this NFC East hatefest will eclipse the year-ago high-water mark set by CBS. For one thing, this year’s deliveries won’t be inflated by the arrival of a new ratings currency; as such, full-season NFL comps are expected to be flat to down slightly versus 2024-25. That said, given the inevitable massive out-of-home turnout that gets baked into the Turkey Day numbers, another holiday high hardly seems improbable.
Grade inflation won’t boost this year’s deliveries, but a close game (and travel-friendly weather across the Lower 48) gives Fox a real crack at rewriting the record books. As a bonus, the relatively rare matchup—the last time the Eagles spent Thanksgiving in the Big D was in 2014; prior to that 33-10 shellacking, Philly’s only other appearance was during the 1989 bloodbath now known as the Bounty Bowl—should help keep Americans glued to the screen.
2) Bears at Lions (CBS Thanksgiving Day window, Nov. 26) 51.2M viewers
Fox last year set a record for the early holiday window with 47.7 million viewers. This time around, CBS gets the redemption tour Lions hosting Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. The last time we saw Williams, he was doing the human Tecmo Bowl thing during NBC’s coverage of a 20-17 playoff loss to the Rams. On a fourth-and-4 in the waning seconds of regulation, Williams backpedaled from L.A.’s 14-yard-line to the 40 to avoid a ferocious pass rush, whereupon he hit Cole Kmet in the corner of the end zone to send the game into OT.
While there’ no telling if Williams will lead the Bears to the promised land, he’s without question one of the most exciting players in the league. If he’s anywhere near as fun to watch with a belly full of yams and a head stuffed with amino acids, Williams could transform himself into a folk hero on a day when most of us are crowded around our TV sets.
3) Chiefs at Bills (NBC Thanksgiving Day window, Nov. 26) 34.1M viewers
Every year, NBC seems to get the short end of the drumstick, as its primetime window fails to draw the massive crowds Fox and CBS command during the afternoon gluttony. Much of that has to do with habit—at around the same time the NBC game is kicking off, tens of millions of Americans are doing the over-the-river-and-through-the-woods drive, but in reverse. Not this time.
After years of watching the annual Chiefs-Bills game get rewarded to CBS, NBC lobbied hard for a shot at Mahomes vs. Allen. Last year’s Nov. 2 contest averaged 30.8 million viewers, and while that marked a slight decline compared to the 2024 game (31.1 million), the rivalry has attained the sort of outsized importance that it all but demands your full attention. If that means you’ll have to alter your usual post-prandial travel plans, so be it. At long last, the nightcap is graced with a matchup that’s worth overstaying your welcome for—even if sticking around for a few extra hours means having to help out with the dishes.
4) Cowboys at Packers (Sunday Night Football , Oct. 18) 33.7M viewers
Speaking of putting in a little extra elbow grease, NBC must’ve worked overtime on its NFL charm offensive, as the network also walked off with one of the other top asks for 2026-27. For the second straight year, NBC landed the guaranteed ratings bonanza that is Dallas-Green Bay, and the Week 6 showdown is expected to draw the biggest numbers this side of Thanksgiving.
On the whole, this may well be the strongest Sunday Night Football schedule on the books, and there may not be a dud in the bunch. (Only the Week 5 Ravens-Falcons game carries a faint whiff of what’s-this-doing-here; bonus points for landing Cowboys-Giants in the Sept. 13 SNF opener. That’s sufficiently early to ensure that both fan bases will still be in the grips of irrational exuberance; by the time they meet up again on Jan. 3, the mood in the bleachers (and on your sofa) may be decidedly less sunny.
4) Bears at Bills (CBS Saturday Primetime Window, Dec. 19) 32.3M viewers
Caleb Williams, meet Josh Allen. This much fun should be illegal.
As a bonus, CBS gets Ravens-Steelers in the 1 p.m. ET window the very next day, followed by Cowboys-Rams in the natty slot. Coals to Newcastle.
5) 49ers at Cowboys (Fox National Window, Nov. 15) 31.7M viewers
It’s a tossup between the latest iteration of one of the greatest rivalries in U.S. sports and the Week 9 Packers-Patriots game that will mark Tom Brady’s first shot at calling the action for his former team. Both Sunday afternoon packages are rock solid, and if nothing else, the care with which this schedule has been assembled suggests that perhaps the NFL isn’t really in such a hurry to slam the door on its legacy TV partners.
Of course, if you’re of a conspiratorial bent, perhaps the 2026-27 slate has been designed to help drive up the league’s rights fees. Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.
Honorable mentions:
Lions-Bills, Sept. 17, Thursday Night Football
Giants-Rams, Sept. 21, Monday Night Football
Rams-Broncos, Sept. 27, Sunday Night Football
Bears-Seahawks, Nov. 2, Monday Night Football
Chiefs-Bengals, Dec. 13, Fox National Window
Bills-Packers, Dec. 13, Sunday Night Football
Pats-Chiefs, Dec. 21, Monday Night Football