National Football League Christmas games

In the earliest days of professional football, the season typically ended near the end of November (marquee games were often played 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, the NFL Championship Game was typically held in mid-December. The 1943 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 the NFL Championship Game being held on the Sunday two weeks later. If that Sunday fell on Christmas Day December 25, the league preferred to move it to the following day, Monday, December 26; this rescheduling occurred for both the 1955 and the 1960 championship games.

The American Football League compensated differently: the 1960 championship game was moved back by a full week, being played on New Year's Day 1961, with Christmas Sunday being an off-week. (The NFL's 1966 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 college bowl games are pushed forward 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 the 1971–72 NFL playoffs. The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round were held on Christmas Day; the first of these was between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings, while the second of the two contests played that afternoon, the Miami Dolphins versus the Kansas City Chiefs, wound up being the longest game in NFL history.[1] 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 league 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.[2][3] 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 fell on a Saturday or a Sunday, given that ordinarily those days would be days in which NFL playoff games were to be held.

In 1976, 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 in Super Bowl history).

In 1977, with Christmas 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 1st quarter of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Denver Broncos game telecast (beginning at 4:00 PM EST), since the early AFC game that Saturday (Oakland Raiders-Baltimore Colts, beginning at 12:30 PM 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 case NBC 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 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 in 1978, but it was not until 1982 that the regular season ended after Christmas. 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.

In 1983 and again in 1988, the NFL split the first round Wild Card Playoffs between Saturday, December 24 and Monday, December 26 to avoid a Christmas game.

Had the United States Football League survived to play its autumn 1986 season, it would have featured the first major professional football games to be played in the regular season on Christmas; the USFL planned a complete set of four games for Christmas Day.[4] The USFL suspended operations prior to the 1986 season and the games were never played.

Finally, in 1989, the NFL tried another Christmas Day game, the Cincinnati Bengals at the Minnesota Vikings, but it was a 9 p.m. ET Monday Night Football contest on ABC, thereby avoiding interfering with family dinners. The NFL pushed the regular season back one week in 1989 as a one-off experiment, meaning Christmas would fall during the last week of the regular season instead of the first round of the playoffs. Starting with the following season, the league added a bye week, making Christmas 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 there has not been a Christmas Day game starting earlier than 4:30 p.m. ET since 1971.

In 1993, NBC aired a Christmas game for the first time since 1971, when the Houston Oilers visited the San Francisco 49ers, with a kickoff time of 5 PM Eastern/2 PM Pacific.

ESPN aired a Christmas game for the first time ever in 1994, when the Detroit Lions visited the Miami Dolphins.

In 1999, CBS aired its first Christmas game since 1971, when the Denver Broncos visited the Detroit Lions.

Fox aired a Christmas game for the first time in 2005, when the Chicago Bears visited the Green Bay Packers.

The NFL Network aired its first Christmas game in 2009, when the San Diego Chargers visited the Tennessee Titans.

The first Christmas game under the current television contracts was held in 2011. According to league policy, most of the weekend's games were moved to Christmas Eve while one game was set aside for NBC Sunday Night Football. That game was played between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field – the second time that these two teams played at that venue on Christmas. Unlike 2005, there was not a second Christmas Day game, due to changes in the NFL's television contracts since the last time Christmas landed on a Sunday during that year. Christmas again fell on a Sunday in 2016. As in previous years, the majority of games were moved to Christmas Eve and Sunday Night Football got one game, along with a special Sunday afternoon edition of Thursday Night Football exclusive to NFL Network (which when it happens again in 2022, may be subject to the NFL's flex rules where the afternoon and evening games may change slots).[5]

Christmas games were not played again until 2016, when Christmas again fell on a Sunday. Again, the majority of games were moved to Christmas Eve, but there were two games on Christmas Day. The Baltimore Ravens visited the Pittsburgh Steelers for a special Sunday afternoon edition of Thursday Night Football exclusive to NFL Network, while the Denver Broncos visited the Kansas City Chiefs for the standard NBC Sunday Night Football game. Unlike most Sunday night games late in the season, the latter game was not subject to flex-scheduling due to the holiday and the fact that the majority of games were played on Saturday.

Two games were played on Christmas Day in 2017, which was a Monday. The Pittsburgh Steelers visited the Houston Texans on a special edition of Thursday Night Football, while the Oakland Raiders visited the Philadelphia Eagles on the standard Monday Night Football game.

One game was played on Christmas Day in 2020, and it was the Thursday Night Football season finale between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints at 4:30 pm EST, since Christmas Eve fell on a Thursday.[6]

By Franchise (as of 2020 NFL season)