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Five NFL teams will not play any games in prime time during the 2026 regular season. Even as the NFL has created more prime-time opportunities from Thanksgiving Eve to Christmas to more Saturday night games, there are five teams that will not be spotlighted in these windows: the Titans, Raiders, Cardinals, Dolphins and Jets.
Until recently, there was a rule that every team had to play in prime time at least once during the season. Since that rule was changed, the NFL can omit teams from prime-time windows in any given season. Last year it was three teams—the Titans, Browns and Saints—missing prime time. This year, it’s five.
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According to Josh Dubow of The Associated Press, this season marks the first time since 2011 that five teams will not have a prime-time game in 2026. Per Dubow, the Titans are also the first team since the 2010-11 Bills to not have a single prime-time game in back-to-back seasons.
It does make sense that all of five of these teams were withheld from playing in prime time. After all, the Raiders, Jets, Cardinals and Titans earned the first four picks in the draft for a reason, and the Dolphins have parted ways with several stars as they begin a rebuild. NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North elaborated on these decisions while speaking to reporters on Friday.
“The truth is, it’s not just about prime time,” said North, via Ryan McFadden of ESPN. “I know there’s a lot of chatter yesterday [and] today. It’s not just about prime time, right? It’s also about the 4:25 p.m. national television window on Sunday afternoon on CBS and Fox, still our most watched window, so maybe you didn’t get as many primes as you wanted, but a couple 4:25 p.m. windows are still going to end up being more widely viewed, maybe, than any prime-time games.”
Neither the Jets nor the Titans will play in any games at 4:25 p.m. They each play just two games in the late afternoon window, starting at 4:05 p.m. The Raiders, Dolphins and Cardinals will each play at 4:25 p.m. during the season, but that is primarily because the Raiders and Cardinals are Western-based teams and the Dolphins play the AFC West and the 49ers in 2026. Each of these five teams are slated to play in one late afternoon window game where they are the sole matchup taking place on the network, but all of those will begin at 4:05 p.m., not the featured 4:25 p.m. window.
These five teams will also not play in any standalone games such as a holiday contest on Thanksgiving or Christmas or an international matchup.
Of these five teams, the Raiders were perhaps the most interesting decision for the NFL as they decided if they wanted to spotlight No. 1 pick and Heisman trophy winner Fernando Mendoza in prime time? The NFL opted against placing them in prime time, like they did with the Titans last season despite taking Cam Ward at No. 1.
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“As far as the Raiders go, nobody knows if or when Mendoza might play,” North detailed. “It would certainly be great if we knew. We don’t. But they went out and signed a very competent veteran quarterback, and if they find themselves hovering around .500 and playoff-relevant in the middle of the season, they might be a little more reluctant to pull the trigger and move to the rookie. And if they are playoff-relevant, they will find themselves flexed into bigger national television windows. … We don’t draft our way into prime time. We play our way into prime time.”
Ultimately all five teams could find themselves in prime time if they surprise and turn out much better than expected. Late season games can be flexed into or out of the prime-time windows, leaving a sliver of a chance for these squads to play at night after all. Last year, however, the NFL proved correct in the three teams they left out of prime time.
“Then relative to a team like the Jets or the Cardinals or anybody else, the Titans, who felt like they didn’t get as much national television exposure as they were hoping to, that’s what flexible scheduling is for,” North said. “That’s why put it in. That’s why we work with our partners every year to ensure that the teams that have played their way into bigger television windows have an opportunity to be rewarded when we get into November and December. The crystal ball isn’t always as clear as we hoped.”
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EVA GEITHEIM
Eva Geitheim is an NFL writer at Sports Illustrated. Prior to joining SI in December 2024, she wrote for Newsweek, Gymnastics Now and Dodgers Nation. A Bay Area native, she has a bachelor’s in communications from UCLA. When not writing, she can be found baking or rewatching Gilmore Girls.
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