Why two holidays for the Eagles, why the Rams’ game 1 p.m., and more schedule questions answered

The Eagles 2026 schedule has been out a few days, and there’s surprisingly little to complain about.

Yes, there’s a tough three-game stretch late in the season against the Seattle Seahawks, Houston Texans, and San Francisco 49ers. And yes, the Birds will be playing on two holidays and across the pond in London. But considering the Eagles are coming off a second straight division title and playing a first-place schedule, things could be much worse.

On paper, the Eagles have the 10th easiest schedule in the league, facing teams with a combined winning percentage of just .481 last season. And that’s despite facing the NFC West, where three teams topped 12 wins last season and advanced to the playoffs.

Still, there are always things that stand out in the schedule. Here’s a look at a few oddities this season:

NFL teams have been scheduled to play on both Thanksgiving and Christmas before, but the league is taking it to new heights this season.

The Eagles are one of five teams scheduled to play during both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays (six if you include the Denver Broncos, who will play on Black Friday and Christmas Day). That’s easily the most in one season during the Super Bowl era, and there are two main reasons — extra broadcast windows and a desire for huge ratings.

Basically, the Eagles are victims of their own success. As one of the top draws in the NFL over the past few seasons, the Birds are a team the league can count on to draw TV ratings. And NFC execs are optimistic the Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Dallas Cowboys could land the largest regular-season TV audience in history, topping the 44.7 million viewers who tuned in for Chiefs-Cowboys last season.

But that’s on the TV side.

In the real world, it can be a real burden on fans when games are scheduled on holidays. Families with young kids are particularly impacted by Christmas Eve games, as are stadium workers, team employees, and everyone else who earns a living from the NFL’s ecosystem.

The league has largely avoided having the same teams host games on both Thanksgiving and Christmas, a lesson learned during the 1999 season when the Detroit Lions hosted games on both holidays. But even that isn’t etched in stone as the league expands its holiday schedule.

“You’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelet,” said Mike North, the league’s vice president of broadcast planning. “I’ll never say never, but we’d like to avoid having a team hosting on both Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

As for the fans, North said the only reason the Eagles are in this position is because of their success, calling it a “privilege” to be picked to play in the league’s most-watched TV windows.

And the fans are showing up, North said.

“They’re voting with their remotes,” North said. “We owe it to them to give them big games.”

It’s easy to second-guess schedule makers, but one head-scratcher on the Eagles’ schedule was the decision to put the Birds’ Week 4 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams in a 1 p.m. kickoff window without the ability to flex, since the league can’t start moving games until Week 5.

In addition, Eagles-Rams will have some stiff competition nationally in that regional window, going up against Cowboys vs. Texans (arguably another game that deserved a national window) and Green Bay Packers vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’s a tough spot, considering the Eagles-Rams exciting 2024 divisional playoff game in the snow averaged 37.9 million viewers, the fourth-largest audience ever for a divisional-round game.

“I think it speaks to our desire, our commitment, our willingness to ensure there’s still quality inventory on Sunday afternoons,” North said, noting it’s not just the TV networks the league is looking to keep happy.

“Frankly, it speaks to the value of the Sunday Ticket product,” North said. “If you want to catch Rams-Eagles that week, and you’re getting Texans-Cowboys in your market instead, that’s exactly what that product is for.”

There have been a fair number of complaints about the value of NFL Sunday Ticket as the league takes away more Sunday afternoon games to create new stand-alone windows and international games. NFL executive vice president Hans Schroeder noted during a conference call the schedule has the same number of Sunday afternoon games this season as previous years, thanks in part to ESPN giving up four overlapping Monday Night Football games as part of its purchase of the NFL Network.

The only real change was both Fox and NBC moving a Sunday afternoon game each to Saturday in Week 15 because this year it falls outside of the Sports Broadcasting Act, which limits the league in an attempt to protect high school and college football.

The Eagles will play in one of those Saturday windows against the Seahawks on Dec. 19 at 5 p.m. on Fox, one of eight stand-alone games the Birds have this season.

The Eagles will play their first international game since 2024 in Brazil, traveling to London to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 5.

Despite making the transatlantic trek, the Eagles don’t have a bye the following week. Instead, they have to wait until Week 10.

North said when the league first began scheduling international games, they largely let teams dictate the terms surrounding their travel, including a home game before and a bye week after. That’s no longer the case.

“We talked to everybody. I like to think we’re pretty honest and transparent, I hope the clubs would say the same, but nobody gets to dictate,” North said.

To add insult to injury, the Carolina Panthers will be coming off their bye week when they face the jet-lagged Eagles after their London trip in Week 6.

NFL teams that don’t have a bye week following an international matchup are 27-21 in the following game, according to the league. Teams that have a bye are 36-39-1 in their next game.

Both the Eagles and the Los Angeles Chargers have four games against teams coming off their bye week, while there are 14 teams that don’t face a single rested team coming off a bye.

The league tracks “total rest disparity,” which quantifies the difference in the amount of time each team had to rest before they play. For example, let’s say the Eagles and Washington Commanders are playing on Sunday. If the Eagles played the previous week on Monday night and the Commanders played on Sunday, the Birds would have one less day of rest, so a rest disparity of minus 1.

This season, the Eagles total rest disparity is minus 15, second worst in the league behind the Chargers (minus 24). Meanwhile, the Birds’ NFC East rivals all have a positive rest disparity, with the Cowboys topping the list at plus 12, third-best in the NFL in 2026.

North said the league has done studies and found teams with extra rest don’t gain a competitive advantage. He cited the San Francisco 49ers, who have the largest rest disparity in the league in 2024 (minus 22) yet advanced to the Super Bowl.

That doesn’t mean teams like the Birds are thrilled. In 2023, Eagles owner Jeff Lurie complained to the league when their schedule garnered a minus 6 rest disparity and the team suffered a late-season collapse.

“I won’t hide the fact that the teams are aware … and have long memories and remind us,” North said. “Good teams overcome challenges, to the extent that rest disparity might be one, but our data does not support it is a competitive disadvantage.”

To North’s point, the Eagles played five games off a short week last season and went 3-2. Meanwhile, the Commanders faced the same number of short-week games and went 0-5.