Games held by theNational Football League (NFL) onChristmas Day, December 25, was historically an occasional part of the league's schedule, but has been an annual occurrence since2020. The NFL had avoided annual Christmas Day games because the holiday could fall on a day in which the league does not normally schedule games, in contrast toThanksgiving Day games sinceThanksgiving is always on a Thursday. The NFL held twoDivisional Playoff games on Christmas Day in1971 when theregular season only spanned a 14-week period. This proved unpopular, and the league avoided Christmas Day games until1989 to2019, when the NFL typically scheduled games on Christmas Day if it fell on a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Beginning in2020, the league has scheduled at least one Christmas game every season, even when the holiday falls on a day in which the NFL does not usually schedule games.
As of the end of the2024 season, there have been 32 Christmas Day games in the NFL's history, all broadcast nationally. Two games were scheduled each Christmas Day from2004 to2006,2016 to2017,2021, and2024. Three games were scheduled each year beginning in2022, with the exception of 2024.[1]
Generally when Christmas Day falls on a Thursday, the day's games will include the standardThursday Night Football broadcast. When Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, it will likewise include the standardSunday Night Football telecast, but the normal slate of Sunday afternoon games is instead moved to Saturday, Christmas Eve. If Christmas Day falls on a Monday, the normal slate of Sunday afternoon games is still played on Christmas Eve, and the normalMonday Night Football broadcast is still on Christmas night, but theSunday Night Football telecast has been moved to either Monday afternoon or to Saturday, December 23 (with up to two games on both of those days).
In the earliest days of professional football, the season typically ended near the end of November (marquee games were oftenplayed on Thanksgiving) or in the first week of December, depending on the team;exhibition games would then be held in the winter. Once league schedules were standardized in the 1930s, theNFL Championship Game was typically held in mid-December. The1943 NFL Championship Game, played on December 26 of that year because of scheduling complications brought on by World War II, was the first regulation NFL game to be played on or after Christmas.
From 1943 until the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger, the NFL regular season usually ended in mid-December, with theNFL Championship Game being held on the Sunday two weeks later. If that Sunday fell onChristmas Day December 25, the league preferred to move it to the following day, Monday, December 26; this rescheduling occurred for both the1955 and the1960 championship games.
TheAmerican Football League (AFL) compensated differently: the 1960championship game was moved back by a full week, being played onNew Year's Day 1961, with Christmas Sunday being an off-week. (The NFL's1966 championship game was also held on Sunday, January 1, 1967, two weeks after the end of the regular season.) New Year's Day was an available day since the collegebowl games are moved back to Monday, January 2 in years in which January 1 falls on a Sunday. The AFL had scheduled the 1966 championship game for Monday afternoon December 26, but when the two leagues agreed to merge in 1970 and play a "World Championship game" starting with the 1966 season, the AFL game was moved back to Sunday, January 1.
The first NFL games actually played on December 25 came after the merger, during the1971–72 NFL playoffs. The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round were held on Christmas Day; the first of these was between theDallas Cowboys and theMinnesota Vikings, while the second of the two contests played that afternoon, theMiami Dolphins versus theKansas City Chiefs, wound up beingthe longest game in NFL history.[2] Because of the length of the latter game, the NFL received numerous complaints, reportedly due to the fact that it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation. The NFL also came under fire from some quarters for intruding on a traditional religious and family holiday, and a Kansas state legislator proposed a bill to ban the scheduling of future games on December 25.[3][4] As a result, the NFL decided to not schedule any Christmas Day games for the next 17 seasons.
This required considerable effort during those years in which Christmas Day fell on a Saturday or a Sunday, given that ordinarily those days would be days in whichNFL playoff games were to be held.
In1976, the NFL opened its regular season a week earlier than would have ordinarily been the case (September 12, the second Sunday of the month, rather than the customary third Sunday) so that the Divisional Playoffs could be held on December 18 and 19 instead of December 25 and 26, and thus no games would be needed on Saturday, December 25 (Super Bowl XI was subsequently played on January 9, the earliest date inSuper Bowl history).
In1977, with Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, the Divisional Playoff Games were held around the holiday, with an AFC doubleheader on Saturday, December 24, and an NFC doubleheader on Monday, December 26. This was done so that one team did not have a two-day rest advantage over the other for the Conference Championship games (the NFL only allowed one-day rest advantages). This scheduling resulted in most of the country missing the majority of the first quarter of thePittsburgh Steelers–Denver Broncos game telecast (beginning at 4:00 p.m. EST), since the early AFC game that Saturday (Oakland Raiders–Baltimore Colts, beginning at 12:30 p.m. EST) went into double overtime; with an ordinary schedule of one game from each conference, viewers would have had the option of switching channels (or using a VCR) but in this caseNBC simply stayed with the Raiders–Colts game (except in the Pittsburgh and Denver markets) and had to overlap its telecasts.
The NFL continued to avoid Christmas Day even after it started to extend the length of the regular season and the playoffs. The league expanded to a 16-game regular season and a 10-team playoff tournament in1978, but it was not until1982 that the regular season ended after Christmas Day. It was originally scheduled to end on Sunday, December 26 of that year, but the regular season was extended to Sunday, January 2, 1983, after the 57-day NFL players' strike reduced the season from 16 games to 9; the NFL compensated by extending the regular season one week and eliminating the off week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl.
In1983 and again in1988, the NFL split the first round Wild Card Playoffs between Saturday, December 24 and Monday, December 26 to avoid a Christmas Day game.
Had theUnited States Football League (USFL) survived to play its autumn1986 season, it would have featured the first major professional football games to be played in the regular season on Christmas Day; the USFL planned a complete set of four games for Christmas Day.[5] The USFL suspended operations prior to the 1986 season and the games were never played.
Finally, in1989, the NFL tried another Christmas Day game,Cincinnati atMinnesota, but it was a 9:00 p.m. ESTMonday Night Football contest onABC, thereby avoiding interfering with family dinners. The NFL pushed the regular season back one week in 1989 as a one-off experiment, meaning Christmas Day would fall during the last week of the regular season instead of the first round of the playoffs. The league added abye week to its schedule in1990, making Christmas Day permanently fall during the regular season. In the years since, the NFL has played an occasional late-afternoon or night game on the holiday, but the league did not schedule a Christmas Day game starting earlier than 3:30 p.m. local time (for either participating team) from 1971 through 2021.
When Christmas Day landed on a Thursday during this period, no games were scheduled even though the league began regularly scheduling late-seasonThursday Night Football games in2006. This was because it landed in Week 17, which was the final week of the season. Any playoff team playing their final regular season game on Thursday would have had a significant competitive advantage with the extra rest heading into the postseason.
The league did however hold rare Friday games on Christmas Day in 2009 and 2020, both of which were consideredspecial editions ofThursday Night Football.[6][7]
The NFL has staged at least one Christmas Day game each season since2020, even in years in which Christmas Day falls on a day the league typically does not play. This became largely a result after the NFL expanded from a 16-game schedule to 17 games in2021, putting the holiday on either the third- or second-to-last week of the regular season.
When December 25 again fell on a Sunday in2022, the NFL scheduled three Christmas Day games for the first time. The 2022 Christmas Day games consisted of single contests for each Sunday network --Fox at the 1:00 p.m. ET early slot,CBS in the late game slot at 4:30 p.m. ET, andSunday Night Football.[8][9] The CBS game included an alternate, youth-oriented broadcast on sister networkNickelodeon, after having previously aired Wild Card games in such a manner.[10]
Under the NFL's next round of television deals, which began in 2023 and will run through 2033, Fox acquired the rights to air special Christmas Day games as the schedule permits. These special Christmas Day games are in addition to standard primetime games on Christmas Day (such asThursday Night Football,Sunday Night Football andMonday Night Football in years in which Christmas Day lands on those days).[11] With December 25 landing on a Monday in2023, the NFL scheduled another tripleheader, once again consisting of national CBS and Fox games, along withMonday Night Football.[12] For the second consecutive season, Nickelodeon aired an alternate, youth-oriented broadcast of CBS's game.[13]
With December 25 landing on a Wednesday in2024, the league originally toldThe Wall Street Journal in December 2023 that it would not play games when Christmas Day falls on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.[14][15] However, on March 26, 2024, the NFL reversed course and announced a three-year agreement withNetflix to nationally stream two Christmas Day games in 2024, and at least one holiday game in both 2025 and 2026.[16][17] TheBaltimore Ravens,Houston Texans,Pittsburgh Steelers, and two-time defending Super Bowl championKansas City Chiefs were selected for the 2024 games. The Netflix games aired on local television affiliates in each respective team's television markets per NFL regulations.[18] All four teams played the previous Saturday to make the turnaround between games similar to that of a Sunday to Thursday night contest. The first everhalftime show for Christmas Gameday washeadlined by Beyoncé on Christmas Day.[19]
According toThe Washington Post in February 2025, theKansas City Chiefs proposed to the league to play on Christmas every year, though it was unclear whether the league's other franchises would agree to the proposal.[20] In April, the NFL's vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling, Mike North, stated that the league would likely not to commit to a permanent host for Christmas.[21]
With December 25 landing on a Thursday for the first time since the expansion of the season, the league will return to a tripleheader of games with Netflix airing two games in the afternoon andPrime Video airing a primetime game as part of its usualThursday Night Football package.[22] NFL commissionerRoger Goodell also stated that a Christmas tripleheader would remain an annual tradition moving forward.[1]
| Season | Visiting team | Score | Home team | Significance | Location | TV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Dallas Cowboys | 20–12 | Minnesota Vikings | Cowboys–Vikings rivalry | Metropolitan Stadium | CBS[23] |
| Miami Dolphins | 27–24(2OT) | Kansas City Chiefs | Longest NFL game | Municipal Stadium | NBC[24] |
By franchise (through the 2024 games)
| Team | Games played | Wins | Losses | Ties | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Eagles | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Indianapolis Colts | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Los Angeles Chargers | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Los Angeles Rams | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| New Orleans Saints | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| New York Jets | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Baltimore Ravens | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | .750 |
| Green Bay Packers | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | .750 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | .667 |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 |
| Denver Broncos | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 |
| Miami Dolphins | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 |
| Tennessee Titans | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | .500 |
| Chicago Bears | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | .500 |
| Dallas Cowboys | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | .400 |
| Las Vegas Raiders | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | .333 |
| Arizona Cardinals | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | .250 |
| Minnesota Vikings | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | .250 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 |
| Cleveland Browns | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 |
| New York Giants | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 |
| Detroit Lions | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .000 |
| Houston Texans | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .000 |
| San Francisco 49ers | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .000 |
