Super Bowl rematch to open new season - your guide to NFL's key games — SkimNews
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- Seattle Seahawks begin their Super Bowl title defence against the New England Patriots on Wednesday (01:20 BST Thursday), the first season opener to feature a Super Bowl rematch since 2016, with British defensive coordinator Aden Durde calling it "unreal."
- The 2026 NFL schedule starts a week later than usual, forcing the season opener to a Wednesday for the first time since 2012 because US bylaws ban professional football broadcasts on Fridays and Saturdays from mid-September.
- The Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers will face off in front of 100,000 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday (10:35 local / 01:35 BST), as Australia and France host NFL games for the first time in a record nine international fixtures across seven countries.
- The Rams — favourites for Super Bowl 61 — headline a league-high seven prime-time games and host the league's first-ever Thanksgiving Eve match against the Green Bay Packers on 25 November.
- Christmas Day features two Netflix-streamed games (Bears vs Packers, Broncos vs Bills) plus a rematch of last season's NFC Championship as Seattle hosts the Rams, while Amazon Prime carries 17 holiday-season games including a Steelers-Broncos Black Friday clash.
- Super Bowl 61 will be played on Sunday, 14 February 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood — the first NFL championship on Valentine's Day and the ninth Super Bowl in the Greater Los Angeles area, at the $5.5bn stadium shared by the Rams and Chargers.
Why it matters: The Rams are the consensus preseet favourite thanks to off-season trades for Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie plus Aaron Donald's one-year return from retirement, putting Seattle's repeat bid immediately on a collision course — and the league's calendar shift means the first-ever Valentine's Day Super Bowl will land on Presidents' Day weekend, reshaping broadcast and travel logistics for the championship game's 70,000-plus attendees.
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