The 2026 NFL preseason begins Thursday, Aug. 6, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, and it puts the Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals on the field first at 8 p.m. ET. NBC will televise the game and Peacock will stream it, giving fans the first live NFL action of the summer.
For people searching NFL games today, the opening date matters because it is the first clear checkpoint on the preseason calendar, not just another warmup date to circle. The Hall of Fame Game also comes with a practical wrinkle for the Panthers and Cardinals: each will play four preseason games this summer instead of the usual three, a one-game edge created by their trip to Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
That extra game stands out in a preseason built around local television. Since 2021, each NFL team has played three preseason games, so the Panthers and Cardinals are the exceptions in 2026 because of their Hall of Fame Game assignment. Most teams still follow the standard path, which is why the schedule matters to fans trying to figure out where to watch and when the first real football starts.
Preseason Week 1 runs from Thursday, Aug. 13 through Saturday, Aug. 15, and it brings all 32 teams into action without a single game on a national broadcast network. NFL Network will carry six games nationally on cable, but the rest are expected to be handled locally, which keeps the biggest viewing window fragmented even as the league fills the slate.
The schedule opens up a little more in Preseason Week 2, which runs Thursday, Aug. 20 through Sunday, Aug. 23 and includes two nationally televised games. Preseason Week 3 follows from Thursday, Aug. 27 through Saturday, Aug. 29, and closes out the preseason before rosters are trimmed. The league has not yet fully filled in the public-facing national window list for the later weeks, but the direction is clear: the first live games arrive now, and the bigger TV mix follows after that.
This summer’s national windows are spread across NBC,, FOX, CBS and Prime Video, while NFL Network will again carry a large slate throughout the preseason. Fans who want to watch on FOX can use FOXSports.com, the FOX Sports app or FOX One, while other national games may be available through services such as YouTube TV or Fubo, depending on package and local affiliate. NFL+ will stream national and out-of-market preseason games with local blackouts and device restrictions, and an over-the-air antenna can still pick up preseason games on FOX, NBC or CBS in local markets at no cost.
The result is a preseason that starts with one nationally available showcase and then quickly turns into a patchwork of local rights, cable windows and streaming access. For Josh Allen, and for every fan tracking the first real football of the summer, the key date is Aug. 6. After that, the next question is not whether the NFL is back. It is which game window comes next and how quickly the rest of the preseason schedule fills in.
