When Is Week 1 of NFL: How the Season's Opening Week Is Set

When Is Week 1 of NFL? Week 1 of the NFL regular season has traditionally begun on the Thursday after Labor Day, though recent seasons have sometimes started a week earlier, in the first full week of September. The 2025 season opened on Thursday, September 4, with the Philadelphia Eagles hosting the Dallas Cowboys. The league does not use a fixed calendar date; it anchors the schedule to Labor Day and to the college football calendar. Anyone checking "when is week 1 of NFL" for a future year should treat the first Thursday after Labor Day as the default and expect the league to announce the exact date with the full schedule release in May.

How the opening date is actually constructed

The NFL does not publish a rule that says "Week 1 falls on date X." The date emerges from a chain of constraints applied by the league office and broadcast partners.

Start with the season length. Since 2021 the regular season has been 18 weeks and 17 games per team, with one bye week per club. Counting backward from the Super Bowl, which is scheduled for the second Sunday in February, the league needs roughly 22 weeks of runway: 18 regular-season weeks, one wild-card weekend, two divisional rounds, two conference championships, and a bye before the Super Bowl. That backward math lands the opener in early September.

Then layer in Labor Day. For decades the NFL avoided opening before the holiday weekend because late-summer attendance and television habits were still shifting. Labor Day became a soft boundary: the first Thursday after it was the natural launch point. The Monday night doubleheader that closes Week 1 then falls on the Monday after, giving the league a three-day national television window.

Finally, the college calendar enters. The NFL prefers not to compete head-to-head with major college games on Saturday, so Week 1 keeps its Saturday slot empty in most years. The league also wants its opener on a Thursday night, when it owns the national broadcast window outright.

The result is a date that moves by up to seven days year to year but rarely more.

The numbers behind the date

The shift is small but real. From 2010 through 2019, the opener fell between September 5 and September 10 every year. In 2020 the pandemic pushed the start to September 10 with no preseason. Since 2022, the league has increasingly used the Thursday before the second weekend of September, which has pulled some openers earlier.

Here is the recent pattern:

The Labor Day offset has been remarkably consistent at three days in the post-2020 era. The variation comes from where Labor Day itself falls. When Labor Day is early (September 2), the opener is early (September 5). When Labor Day is late (September 7), the opener is late (September 10).

The 2024 season is a useful check. Labor Day fell on September 2, and the opener was September 5. The 2025 season had Labor Day on September 1, and the opener was September 4. Both fit the three-day rule.

Edge cases that break the pattern

A few conditions can move Week 1 outside the Labor Day window.

The first is international play. The NFL has staged regular-season games in London and Mexico City since 2007, and those games are scheduled in the early weeks. In 2022 the league opened with a game in Munich. International logistics can push the opener a week earlier or shift the Week 1 slate's composition, though the league has kept the Thursday opener in the United States in recent years.

The second is the preseason. The NFL cut the preseason from four games to three in 2021, which freed a week. Some owners have pushed to cut it to two, which would create room for an earlier start or a later bye structure. No change has been ratified, and the current collective bargaining agreement runs through 2030.

The third is the Super Bowl date. The Super Bowl is contractually tied to the second Sunday in February in most years, but broadcast rotations and host-city logistics occasionally shift it. A one-week Super Bowl shift would cascade backward through the playoffs and could theoretically move the opener.

The fourth, and the one most likely to matter, is weather and stadium readiness. The 2023 season opened with the Buffalo Bills hosting the New York Jets on September 11, a Monday, because the league wanted a marquee Monday night matchup. That was a broadcast decision, not a weather one, but it shows that the Week 1 structure is flexible within a roughly ten-day window.

Bullet list of things that can move Week 1:

An international game scheduled in the opening week A preseason reduction negotiated in the CBA A Super Bowl date shift caused by host-city or broadcast constraints A stadium construction or renovation delay A labor stoppage or lockout A scheduling conflict with a major college or MLB event in a shared market

Misconceptions worth correcting

The most common mistake is treating Week 1 as a fixed holiday. It is not. The NFL schedule release in May is the authoritative source, and the league has moved the opener by as much as five days within a decade.

The second misconception is that Week 1 is always the first NFL football of the year. The Hall of Fame Game, played in early August, is the first preseason game. The preseason runs three weeks before Week 1. If someone asks when Week 1 of NFL starts in the context of "when does football come back," the answer is the preseason, not the regular season.

The third is that the Thursday opener is always a rematch or a rivalry game. The NFL has used the kickoff game to honor the defending Super Bowl champion at home in most years, but not always. In 2023 the opener was Kansas City hosting Detroit, a nod to the defending champion. In 2024 it was Kansas City hosting Baltimore, a rematch of the previous AFC championship. In 2025 it was Philadelphia hosting Dallas, a division rivalry. The league treats the opener as a showcase, not a fixed formula.

The counterintuitive detail: the Week 1 date is set not by the NFL's calendar committee but by the broadcast partners' preferences. The league's scheduling formula gives ESPN, NBC, CBS, and Fox input on which weeks get which matchups, and the opener is the most valuable single slot of the season. That is why the date bends to television more than to any other constraint.

Practical steps for planning around Week 1

If you are buying tickets, booking travel, or setting a fantasy football draft, here is the sequence that works.

First, use the Labor Day rule as your planning anchor: first Thursday after Labor Day. That gets you within a week of the actual date for any future season.

Second, watch for the schedule release. The NFL typically announces the full 18-week schedule in mid-May, and the opener is confirmed at that point. The league has released the schedule in the second or third week of May in recent years.

Third, check the preseason schedule. The Hall of Fame Game is announced in spring, and the three preseason weeks are confirmed alongside the regular-season schedule. If you are planning a trip to a training camp or a preseason game, that is your earlier milestone.

Fourth, for fantasy football, the draft window is typically the last week of August. The NFL's final preseason game is usually the last Thursday or Friday of August, and most leagues draft the following weekend. Week 1 kickoff is then roughly ten days later.

Fifth, for travel, book refundable fares until the schedule is confirmed. The opener's date is stable within a week, but the specific matchup and kickoff time are not known until May.

The thresholds to reconcile: the Labor Day rule gets you within seven days; the May schedule release gets you to the exact date; the preseason schedule gets you to the exact week. Use the tightest threshold available at the time you are planning.

What the date cannot tell you

The Week 1 date is a scheduling fact, not a prediction. It does not tell you which teams will be good, which players will be healthy, or which games will be competitive. It also does not tell you the kickoff time for the Sunday afternoon slate, which the league sets later and can flex.

The date is also not guaranteed by rule. The NFL's scheduling formula is a set of preferences and practices, not a contractual obligation to a specific calendar date. A lockout, a pandemic, or a stadium crisis can move it, as 2020 demonstrated. Anyone relying on the date for a high-stakes commitment should build in a buffer.

One more limitation: the league has not published a formal rule for the opener's date, so any "rule" you read is an inference from past behavior. The three-day Labor Day offset has held for six straight seasons, but that is a pattern, not a promise.

For a general-interest scheduling question, no medical, legal, or financial disclaimer applies. If you are relying on the date for travel insurance, ticket resale, or fantasy league rules, confirm the exact date against the league's official schedule release in May, and check the specific kickoff time against the week's broadcast assignments.