2026 NFL season


The 2026 NFL season is the upcoming 107th season of the National Football League. The regular season is scheduled to begin on September 10, 2026, with the NFL Kickoff Game, and will end on January 10, 2027. The playoffs are then set to begin on January 16 and will conclude with Super Bowl LXI, the league's championship game, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California on February 14, making it the NFL's latest date to end the season.

Player movement

The 2026 NFL league year and trading period is scheduled to begin on March 11. On March 9, teams will be allowed to exercise options for 2026 on players with option clauses in their contracts, submit qualifying offers to their pending restricted free agents, and submit a Minimum Salary Tender to retain exclusive negotiating rights to their players with expiring 2025 contracts and fewer than three accrued seasons of free agent credit. Teams were required to be under the salary cap using the "top 51" definition. On March 11, clubs will be allowed to contact and begin contract negotiations with players whose contracts had expired and thus became unrestricted free agents.

Free agency

Free agency is scheduled to begin on March 11, 2026.

Retirements

Notable retirements
Other retirements

Draft

The 2026 NFL draft is scheduled to take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 23–25, with events held at Acrisure Stadium, Point State Park, and other venues throughout the city. Las Vegas, by virtue of having the worst record in, hold the first overall selection.

Rule changes

The amount of time allowed to select a draft pick in the first round of the NFL draft will be reduced from 10 to 8 minutes beginning with the 2026 NFL draft.

Regular season

The season is planned to be played over an 18-week schedule, beginning on September 10. Each of the league's 32 teams plays 17 games, with one bye week. The regular season is then scheduled to end on January 10, 2027; all games during the final weekend will be intra-division games, as it has been since.
Each team plays the other three teams in its own division twice, one game against each of the four teams from a division in its own conference, one game against each of the four teams from a division in the other conference, one game against each of the remaining two teams in its conference that finished in the same position in their respective divisions the previous season, and one game against a team in another division in the other conference that also finished in the same position in their respective division the previous season.
The division pairings for 2026 are as follows:
Highlights of the 2026 season are planned to include the following :

Flexible scheduling rules

This will be the fourth season of the league's flexible scheduling system that includes Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, and increased the amount of cross-flexing of Sunday afternoon games between CBS and Fox.

Postseason

The 2026 playoffs are scheduled to begin with the Wild Card Round from January 16–18, 2027, with three games played in each conference. In the Divisional Round, scheduled for January 23–24, the top seed in the conference will play the lowest remaining seed and the other two remaining teams play each other. The winners of those games advance to the Conference Championship games scheduled for January 31. Super Bowl LXI is scheduled for February 14 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Stadiums

This is planned to be the first season that the Buffalo Bills will play at the new Highmark Stadium. The team had played at the previously-named Highmark Stadium since 1973.
This is scheduled to be the final season in which the Tennessee Titans will play their home games at their current Nissan Stadium. The new stadium, also to be called Nissan Stadium, is scheduled to be completed by the start of the 2027 season.

Uniforms

Rivalries series

AFC South and NFC North teams are scheduled to unveil their "rivalries" uniforms in 2026, designed to be worn at one home divisional game per season.

Uniform changes

  • Atlanta filed for uniform changes for the 2026 season. The team teased a uniform update in January with an April 2026 announcement date.
  • Baltimore has apparently filed for jersey changes for the 2026 season. In November 2025, reports indicated that the Ravens had filed for new uniform designs for the upcoming season, suggesting that changes are in development. The team has already taken steps toward potential updates according to sources.

Media

National

Linear television

Under an agreement first announced on August 5, 2025, and approved by government regulators on January 31, 2026, ESPN acquired NFL Network, television distribution rights to NFL RedZone and the RedZone brand, and the NFL's official fantasy football service. In exchange, the league received a 10 percent equity stake in ESPN. The NFL's existing deal with ESPN remained unaffected.
This will also be the fourth year of the existing 11-year U.S. media deals with CBS, Fox, and NBC, along with its Spanish counterparts Fox Deportes, and Telemundo Deportes.
  • Sunday afternoon games will continue to be split between CBS and Fox, with the two networks carrying the Sunday afternoon AFC and NFC packages, respectively. When the initial schedule is created, CBS and Fox will be able to specify a limited amount of games involving teams from their respective conference that they want to air, but otherwise the league is free to schedule games regardless of conference. Each network will air ten Sunday doubleheaders, with both networks airing one in Weeks 15 and 18. On Thanksgiving afternoon, CBS will have the early Detroit game and Fox will have the late Dallas game, Fox also has the option to air any Christmas Day games at its discretion.
  • NBC will continue to air Sunday Night Football, the NFL Kickoff Game, and the primetime Thanksgiving game.
  • ESPN will continue to produce Monday Night Football, the doubleheader on the last Saturday of the season, ABC simulcasting select MNF games and the last Saturday doubleheader, and ESPN2 featuring the alternative Manningcast on select games. ESPN will also take over production of the NFL Network Exclusive Game Series. The league will no longer schedule Monday night doubleheaders. Instead, ABC will have three additional MNF simulcasts for a total of at least six, ESPN's rights to the four games lost by the removal of the MNF doubleheaders will move to NFL Network, and NFL Network's rights to four International Series games will be resold to other interested broadcasters.
  • Like in previous seasons, any additional one-year modifications or separate deals to these linear TV rights are expected to be announced with the 2026 season schedule.

Streaming

  • This will be the fifth year of a 12-year deal with Amazon Prime Video and Twitch to exclusively stream Thursday Night Football.
  • ESPN DTC will simulcast all ESPN-produced games.
  • Fox One will simulcast in market and national Fox games.
  • Paramount+ will simulcast in market and national CBS games.
  • Peacock will simulcast NBC's games. This will also be the fourth season in a six-year deal that the platform will exclusively stream one regular season game.
  • This will be Netflix's third and final year to exclusively stream select Christmas Day games.
  • This will be the fourth season out of a seven-year deal that the NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market sports package will stream on YouTube TV, as well as on YouTube's Primetime Channels service as a standalone subscription option.
  • The league's streaming service NFL+ will continue to live stream in-market and national regular season and postseason games on mobile devices only, radio broadcasts for all games, most out-of-market preseason games and a live stream of NFL Network on its base tier, and replays of games along with a live stream of NFL RedZone on its premium tier.
  • Like in previous seasons, any additional one-year modifications or separate deals to these streaming rights are expected to be announced with the 2026 season schedule.

Postseason

During the Wild Card round, CBS and Fox will air an AFC and NFC Wild Card game, respectively. NBC will air the Sunday night game under the sixth year of its seven-year deal. ESPN/ABC will broadcast a Wild Card game on a date to-be-determined, as its previous deal to air the Monday night Wild Card game expired after the previous postseason. NBC will air a second Wild Card game this season as part of the rotation with Fox and CBS. This will also be the third postseason under a multi-year deal that Amazon Prime Video will exclusively stream a Wild Card playoff game.
This will be the fourth season that all four broadcast television partners air one divisional playoff game per season.
Under the annual rotation of Super Bowl broadcasters, Super Bowl LXI will be the first time that the game will be an ESPN/ABC simulcast, the first time ABC will have aired the Super Bowl since 2005's Super Bowl XL, the first time ever that ESPN will air a live Super Bowl and the first time since the 2013 season that both the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl will be airing on the same network.

Radio

  • Westwood One Radio has rights to air all games televised by the national partners.
  • ESPN Radio and Sports USA Radio Network has rights to air select Sunday afternoon games on its radio networks.
  • This is the fifth and final season of the league's five-year deal with SiriusXM to simulcast all 32 teams' local regular season and postseason broadcasts, including a wraparound show called SiriusXM NFL Sunday Drive.

International

  • ESPN will air its slate of games in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the Netherlands; and through Disney+ in select markets in Asia and Europe.
  • In the UK and Ireland:
  • * This will the second year of a three-year deal that Sky Sports will broadcast select games on either their dedicated Sky Sports NFL Channel or through their Sky Sports+ channels.
  • * This will the second year of a multi-year deal that the free-to-air Channel 5 will broadcast games through their main channel as well as 5Action.
  • This will be the fourth year of a ten-year deal that DAZN will distribute NFL Game Pass International.