NFL Week 1 2026 Schedule: Every Game, Time and Network

The 2026 NFL season starts on a Wednesday. New England at Seattle kicks off at 8:20 p.m. ET on Sept. 9 on NBC, and the full NFL Week 1 2026 schedule then spreads 16 games across four calendar days, ending with Denver at Kansas City on Monday, Sept. 14. Two of those games happen before the first Sunday. That structure changes how the week gets bet, so here is the whole board with times and networks exactly as the league lists them.

NFL Week 1 2026 schedule: the full board

Every game and time below is taken from the NFL's own Week 1 schedule page, read on Aug. 21. All times are Eastern.

Wednesday, Sept. 9

Patriots at Seahawks, 8:20 p.m., NBC

Thursday, Sept. 10

49ers at Rams, 8:35 p.m., Netflix (in East Melbourne, Australia)

Sunday, Sept. 13, early window (1:00 p.m.)

Bears at Panthers, FOX

Buccaneers at Bengals, FOX

Saints at Lions, FOX

Falcons at Steelers, FOX

Bills at Texans, CBS

Ravens at Colts, CBS

Browns at Jaguars, CBS

Jets at Titans, CBS

Sunday, Sept. 13, late window (4:25 p.m.)

Cardinals at Chargers, CBS

Dolphins at Raiders, FOX

Packers at Vikings, CBS

Commanders at Eagles, FOX

Sunday Night Football, Sept. 13

Cowboys at Giants, 8:20 p.m., NBC

Monday Night Football, Sept. 14

Broncos at Chiefs, 8:15 p.m., ESPN

That is all 32 teams, none on a bye, in a week with only one Monday night game.

The three structural quirks worth knowing

The opener is a Super Bowl rematch. Seattle beat New England 29-13 in Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8, and Week 1 puts the Patriots in Seattle at Lumen Field. StatSniper broke that matchup down in our Seahawks and Patriots Week 1 preview.

The Thursday game is in Australia. San Francisco and the Rams play in East Melbourne on Netflix at 8:35 p.m. ET. It is the only game in the NFL Week 1 2026 schedule carrying the league's international designation, and the only one on Netflix.

The early Sunday window is eight games deep. Eight of the 16 kick at 1:00 p.m., split four on FOX and four on CBS, with only four games in the 4:25 window. That is a front-loaded Sunday, and it puts half the week's games in a single early window.

Betting impact and DFS notes

The scheduling shape does specific things to a Week 1 card, and none of them require a price to be useful.

Wednesday and Thursday create two separate information markets. The opener finishes more than three days before the first Sunday kickoff, so injury news out of Seattle and New England lands while most Week 1 tickets are still unwritten. Those are days of price movement that happen before the main card opens rather than during it.

The Australia game is a travel spot, not just a novelty. Both the 49ers and Rams have to make the trip, so the usual home and away read does not apply cleanly to a game listed in East Melbourne. It is also the only NFL game on the board that night.

DFS exposure skews early. With eight games at 1:00 p.m. and only four at 4:25, a main-slate lineup lives or dies almost entirely in the first window. There is very little late-swap leverage in Week 1 compared with a standard week, so the pivot value of a 4:25 game is higher than the slate size suggests.

One Monday game means a clean showcase. Denver at Kansas City is the only Monday fixture, so it absorbs the entire prime-time market on its own night rather than splitting it.

Season-long projections are doing most of the work in Week 1, because nobody has a 2026 regular-season sample yet. StatSniper's 2026 NFL win totals breakdown is the reference for where those projections sit, and Chad AI runs the model reads on every prop as the openers post inside the app. The full daily board lives on the AI sports picks hub.

What to watch next

Rosters get cut down before any of this matters, and the Week 1 depth charts are not settled yet, so neither are the props that depend on them. We laid out that process and the waiver rules in our 2026 NFL roster cuts breakdown. After the cuts, Week 1 injury reports are the next thing that moves these numbers.

One more calendar note from the league's own schedule page: Weeks 16, 17 and 18 carry flexible-scheduling language. The windows themselves are already fixed, including Week 18's three Saturday games at 1:00 p.m. ET on Netflix and 4:30 and 8:00 p.m. ET on ESPN/ABC. What is not fixed is which of the designated matchups fill them. That is a long way off, and it is worth knowing now if you are building futures around a specific team's finishing stretch.

FAQ

When does the 2026 NFL season start? Wednesday, Sept. 9, with New England at Seattle at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC. The first Sunday of the season is Sept. 13.

How many games are in NFL Week 1 2026? Sixteen, covering all 32 teams across four days: Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday. No team has a bye in Week 1.

Which NFL Week 1 game is being played in Australia? The 49ers face the Rams in East Melbourne on Thursday, Sept. 10 at 8:35 p.m. ET, streaming on Netflix. It is the only Week 1 fixture the league lists as an international game.

What is the Monday Night Football game in Week 1 of 2026? Denver at Kansas City, Monday, Sept. 14 at 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN. It is the only Monday game in Week 1.

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