The Eagles play next on Sunday, January 4, 2026, at 4:25 p.m. ET against the New York Giants at Lincoln Financial Field, and the game airs on FOX. If you are reading this after that date, search your favorite live listings service for the current kickoff time. This schedule fact changes weekly, so the durable answer is not a date at all. It is understanding the system that sets the date: how the NFL builds its 272-game slate, why kickoff times shift by weeks, and which mechanisms decide when Philadelphia takes the field.
How the NFL schedule gets built and flexed
The league does not publish one fixed schedule in May and leave it alone. It builds a schedule in layers, and each layer can move an Eagles kickoff.
The first layer is the annual rotation. Philadelphia's opponents are fixed years in advance by a formula. Six games come from NFC East home-and-away pairings. Four come from one rotating NFC division. Four come from one rotating AFC division. Two come from same-conference finishers. One is the seventeenth game, an interconference matchup assigned by a rotation that also factors in division finish. Fans can map future opponents today without waiting for a release.
The second layer is the broadcast package. The NFL sells games to CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, and Amazon, and each contract carries windows. FOX owns most Sunday afternoon NFC games, CBS owns most AFC games, and the Sunday night window belongs to NBC. The 1:00 and 4:25 p.m. ET Sunday slots exist because the league staggers kickoffs to avoid overlapping too many games and to protect the national window.
The third layer is flexible scheduling, often called flexing. The NFL may move a Sunday afternoon game into Sunday Night Football between Weeks 5 and 17 with roughly 12 days notice. Late in the season, the window can shrink, and the league can shift games between the 1:00 and 4:25 p.m. slots with about a week of lead time. A Week 18 game can also be moved to Saturday.
The fourth layer is the Week 18 algorithm. The final week's entire slate is scheduled after Week 17 results are known, so the league can place games with playoff stakes in premium windows. Philadelphia's final kickoff time, date, and network can all be unknown until six days out.
The mechanism matters because each layer overrides the one below it. A date printed on a poster in August can legally change in December. A kickoff time that seems locked can move because a broadcaster wants a better matchup at 4:25 p.m. or because a division race is alive.
Quantified context: what moves, and by how much
The NFL schedule contains 272 regular-season games across 18 weeks, with each team playing 17. Kickoff windows are not evenly distributed. Sunday afternoons absorb most of the slate. Thursday night games sit at 8:15 p.m. ET on Amazon. Sunday night games start at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
For Philadelphia specifically, the 2025 regular season laid out as follows, and it shows the range of kickoff times a single team can face.
| Week | Opponent | Date | Kickoff (ET) | Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dallas Cowboys | Thu, Sep 4 | 8:20 p.m. | Thursday night |
| 2 | Kansas City Chiefs | Sun, Sep 14 | 4:25 p.m. | Sunday late |
| 3 | Los Angeles Rams | Sun, Sep 21 | 1:00 p.m. | Sunday early |
| 5 | Denver Broncos | Sun, Oct 5 | 4:25 p.m. | Sunday late |
| 7 | Minnesota Vikings | Sun, Oct 19 | 1:00 p.m. | Sunday early |
| 10 | Green Bay Packers | Mon, Nov 10 | 8:15 p.m. | Monday night |
| 12 | Dallas Cowboys | Thu, Nov 27 | 4:30 p.m. | Thanksgiving |
| 14 | Los Angeles Chargers | Mon, Dec 8 | 8:15 p.m. | Monday night |
| 17 | Buffalo Bills | Sun, Dec 28 | 4:25 p.m. | Sunday late |
| 18 | New York Giants | Sun, Jan 4 | 4:25 p.m. | Sunday late |
The table makes a point that calendar apps miss. An Eagles game can start at 1:00 p.m., 4:25 p.m., 8:20 p.m., or 4:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving, and it can land on Thursday, Sunday, Monday, or even Saturday. The start time is a broadcast and competitive decision, not a fixed property of the team.
The 2025 season also showed the flexing pressure. The December 28 Bills game carried playoff implications for both teams and landed in the late Sunday window. The Week 18 Giants game, a division rivalry with no playoff certainty for either side at press time, stayed at 4:25 p.m. on FOX. Division games get protected scheduling because they draw audiences regardless of records.
Edge cases: when the standard rules break
Several situations override the normal weekly pattern.
International games move kickoff times dramatically. The 2025 season included a game in São Paulo that started in the morning U.S. windows, and the NFL continues to schedule London, Munich, and Madrid games. An Eagles international game would not start at the familiar Sunday time; it might begin at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Saturday games appear in Weeks 15 through 18. The 1970s rule protecting high school and college football limited Saturday NFL games for decades, but the league has since scheduled them late in the season when the college slate thins. A Saturday Eagles game changes the fantasy football deadline and the tailgate schedule at the stadium.
Thursday night games appear as early as Week 1. Philadelphia opened the 2025 season on a Thursday, meaning the first game of the year required no schedule lookup at all: the league tells the defending Super Bowl champion where it plays.
Flexing can relocate a game between 1:00 and 4:25 p.m. with about a week of notice, and it can move a game to Sunday night with roughly 12 days. A road-trip plan booked weeks in advance can break. The professional caveat: never buy nonrefundable travel for a late-season game until the kickoff window is final, usually the Wednesday or Thursday before.
Postponements and weather are the last edge case. Thunderstorms, extreme heat, and snow can shift start times. In 2023, a Bills–Bengals game was suspended mid-game after a player collapsed, and the league rescheduled it. Games can also be moved for air quality, as smoke from Canadian wildfires forced changes in 2023.
Misconceptions that waste time
The most common mistake is assuming the schedule release in May settles everything. It does not. The league prints a full slate, but the Week 18 times are deliberately provisional and the flex mechanism applies.
A second misconception: thinking every Eagles game is a Sunday afternoon affair. Philadelphia has played Thursday openers, Monday night divisional games, and Thanksgiving afternoon games in the same season.
A third: believing the 1:00 p.m. Eastern start is universal. A fan in Los Angeles sees a 10:00 a.m. kickoff for an Eagles home game. A fan in London sees a 6:00 p.m. kickoff for a 1:00 p.m. Eastern game.
Red flags that your schedule source is stale:
The page lists a Week 18 time in August as final. The site has no flexed-game note for late-season matchups. Kickoff times appear without a time zone. The source shows a Saturday game in Week 8, which is impossible. The page is a content farm that never updates after September.
Practical actions to lock in the next kickoff
Use a repeatable process rather than a single bookmark.
Open the NFL's official schedule page and filter by the Eagles. Confirm the kickoff time and the time zone. Cross-check the day before the game, because flex announcements land midweek. Set a calendar reminder for the Wednesday before any Week 5 through 17 game, when the 12-day flex window opens. For Week 18, check on the preceding Sunday evening, after the Week 17 results finalize the slate. If you are traveling, buy only refundable fares, and plan to arrive the day before rather than hours before kickoff. Add the TV network to the reminder, since a 1:00 p.m. FOX game and a 4:25 p.m. FOX game require different afternoon plans.
The threshold to remember: a 4:25 p.m. ET kickoff equals 1:25 p.m. Pacific, 2:25 p.m. Mountain, and 3:25 p.m. Central. A 1:00 p.m. Eastern kickoff equals 10:00 a.m. Pacific. Use one time zone consistently when comparing sources.
Limitations: what this schedule picture cannot promise
Kickoff times are broadcast products, and they change for reasons fans cannot forecast. The 2026 schedule has not been released, so any future Eagles date mentioned here reflects the 2025 season and will be replaced. The Week 18 algorithm can produce a Saturday game, a Sunday night game, or a tripleheader slot, and the league has used all three. Injury news, playoff mathematics, and weather can move a game after this article is written.
The safe rule: treat any kickoff time more than two weeks out as provisional, and treat the final Week 18 time as unknown until the league announces the full slate.
The date and time at the top of this page are current as of the 2025 season and reflect the most recent official schedule. Verify with the NFL before making plans.