NFL preseason
The NFL preseason is a run of exhibition games played before the regular season begins. A court judgment in 1974 noted that no fewer than five lawsuits, from Dallas to New England, accused teams of violating the Sherman Act. The complaint was about tickets. Teams were requiring season-ticket buyers to purchase seats to exhibition games as well. Yet the games have survived since the earliest days of the sport, through legal challenges and years of grumbling from players and fans. This documentary asks how professional football ended up with games that do not count, and who decides which teams meet. It also asks why some head coaches now keep their best players out of these games entirely, and what the league has tried to change.
Before 1920, almost every game an independent professional football team played was effectively an exhibition. Teams barnstormed, taking on squads from other leagues, local college teams and amateur groups. They charged fans whatever the traffic would bear.
When the NFL was founded in 1920, every game counted toward the championship. In 1921, the league limited the standings to games between two league members. That allowed outside exhibitions but effectively banned them between two NFL teams. The rule mattered at once, because the losing team in the 1921 title decider insisted that the game was only an exhibition. In 1924, the league declared that any game played in December or later would be an exhibition. By the mid-1930s, teams prepared for a standard 12-game regular season. Even in 1939, some clubs still booked non-league exhibitions before and during the season, using their bye weeks. The Pittsburgh Steelers, then called the Pirates, also played a limited schedule in the decades-old Western Pennsylvania circuit in the 1930s.
In 1966, each of the nine American Football League teams played four preseason games. The 1960s had brought a 14-game regular season, and exhibition schedules shrank to four or five games. By the end of that decade, however, the number of preseason games was climbing rapidly.
The 1970 AFL-NFL merger gave the new league an exemption from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. That emboldened some owners to lengthen the exhibition schedule. They required season-ticket holders to pay for one home exhibition, then two, then three, if they wanted to keep their season tickets. From 1970 through 1977, the league played 14 regular season games and six exhibition games. The 1974 Washington Redskins played all but one of their six preseason games at home. Later the regular season grew to 16 games, and the exhibition schedule was cut from six to four.
No two teams have met more than once in the same preseason since 1998, when San Francisco and Seattle played twice. That is one of several loose precedents the league follows. Unlike the regular season, exhibition matchups follow no rotating formula. The NFL schedules every game and sets every date and time. Since 2002, individual teams have been allowed to negotiate their own deals to play each other. The league takes input on desired matchups and fills in any games left unarranged. The schedule is released in the spring, shortly before the regular season schedule.
In 1992, the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers met on the 1st of August in Tokyo, then again on the 15th of August in Dallas. Before the 1970 merger, playing the same opponent twice in one preseason was common. It was also common for division opponents to meet, because divisions were larger then. As recently as 1984, the bitter rivals Cleveland and Pittsburgh played a preseason game. In 1999, San Diego played its division rivals Denver and Kansas City. The last preseason game between division opponents came in 2000, when the Seattle Seahawks played the Oakland Raiders.
Interconference games are encouraged. Teams generally face the other conference only once every four years in the regular season, so these games offer fresh matchups. They also let teams visit particular markets more often than normal. Most preseason games each year are between teams that do not meet in that year's regular season.
Geography matters too, because close opponents mean minimal travel. Intrastate rivals that are not division foes show up often. The Giants and Jets meet in the MetLife Bowl. The Ravens and Commanders play the Battle of the Beltways. The Chargers and Rams play the Battle for Los Angeles. Since the 2002 realignment to 32 teams, clubs more than two time zones apart normally do not play, though there have been exceptions.
The Broncos and Cardinals are the only two teams in the Mountain Time Zone, and they play every preseason. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, so in August Denver is one hour ahead of Arizona. The Eagles and Jets have ended the preseason against each other every year since 2001, for the same reason of proximity.
Since 2005, the Giants and the Patriots have closed out their preseasons together, because the owners of the two teams are friends.
From 2003 to 2021, the Steelers and the Panthers also finished their preseasons against each other, despite 450 miles between Pittsburgh and Charlotte. The ties run deep. John Fox, a former assistant at Pitt and with the Steelers, became head coach in Carolina. Linebackers Greg Lloyd and Kevin Greene, both former Steelers, finished their careers there. Donnie Shell, a former Steelers safety, served as the Panthers Director of Player Development from 1994 to 2009. David Tepper, an East Liberty native and former Steelers minority owner, became majority owner of the Panthers. Former Steelers coach Bill Cowher attended N.C. State and lived in Raleigh for a time after retiring. Willie Parker and Jeff Reed, both former Steelers players, attended UNC. More western Pennsylvania natives were also relocating to the Carolinas. The meetings became less frequent once the regular season expanded, but they resumed in 2025.
The Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions often play each other as a tribute to Ralph Wilson, the late Bills owner. Wilson was a Detroit native who at one point owned a share of the Lions. Buffalo and Detroit are also the only NFL cities that border Canada, on opposite sides of Southern Ontario.
Some in-state rivalries carry a name. The Texas Governor's Cup pairs the Cowboys and the Texans, as it has since 2002, and before that the Cowboys and the Houston Oilers from 1967 to 1996. Pennsylvania's version sets the Eagles against the Steelers. In Missouri, Kansas City faced the Cardinals from 1970 to 1987, then the Rams from 1995 to 2015. That series is suspended while St. Louis has no team.
The 2002 division realignment broke up old rivalries, and the league answered in a particular way. From 2002 to 2006 it had authority to schedule former division rivals for exhibitions, hoping to recover revenue lost with a popular annual game. The Cardinals and Seahawks, both moved into the NFC West, were the most notable examples. Tampa Bay and St. Louis had a popular mini-rivalry from 1999 to 2004. When the two were not due to meet in 2003, the league gave them a Monday night preseason game.
Other reunions followed. In 2018, the Titans and Steelers, former rivals in the old AFC Central, met in the preseason for the first time since realignment. That same year, the Lions and Buccaneers, once rivals in the old NFC Central, did the same. In 2013, the Seahawks and Packers were scheduled for a rematch of the game known as Fail Mary, because they were not due to meet in the regular season.
Teams that hold joint practices together are also scheduled to play a preseason game. In 2014, the Bills and Steelers held a joint practice and scrimmage on top of their exhibition.
The 2009 Hall of Fame Game paired the Buffalo Bills and the Tennessee Titans, two original American Football League teams. The matchup was announced after Ralph C. Wilson Jr. was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the 1st of February 2009. Wilson was an AFL founder and the only owner the Bills had ever had. Bud Adams, owner of the Titans, was likewise the only owner his franchise had known to that point. The two were the last surviving members of the original AFL ownership group. They were also among only three men to majority-own a professional football franchise continuously for fifty years or more. The third was George Halas, who owned the Chicago Bears from 1920 to 1983. The game kicked off the 2009 season, which would have been the 50th for the AFL had it survived as an independent league.
A Hall of Fame Game matchup can be announced years ahead. The Buccaneers played the Steelers in 1998, a pairing announced in 1983. Normally the league and the Hall of Fame committee alone choose the teams, with one AFC team and one NFC team. The announcement comes around the time of the Super Bowl, when the inductees are named. A new expansion team is usually invited. Carolina, Jacksonville, the new Cleveland Browns and Houston all played in their expansion seasons. The 2011-2012 and 2016 games were scheduled between two NFC teams.
From 1999 to 2001, the league had an uneven 31 teams, so Hall of Fame weekend carried extra exhibitions, usually two or three. Each team needed a bye week during the exhibition season, and most took it that weekend. The practice ended after the Houston Texans arrived in 2002 and made the league 32 teams.
The American Bowl, held from 1986 to 2005, was an extra exhibition for its two teams. It was often played on the same weekend, usually in Mexico or Japan. Similar international matches had occurred regularly since 1969.
The exhibition season typically begins in the first weekend of August with the Hall of Fame Game, though in some years it falls on the second weekend. Previous seasons have seen the American Bowl played in the last weekend of July. Three full weekends of games follow, and then a league-wide bye week falls over Labor Day weekend.
From 1934 to 1976, except 1974, Chicago hosted the College All-Star Game. It usually opened the preseason and matched the NFL champion against an all-rookie team of college all-stars. The champion was a World champion from 1966 onward.
Between 1950 and 1961, the NFL also played exhibitions against teams from the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union, which became the eastern section of the Canadian Football League in 1958. These games used a mix of American and Canadian rules. The NFL won all six matchups, and the series ended after the 1961 preseason. A scheduling problem added to the embarrassment. The CFL kept moving its regular season earlier, until it overlapped the NFL preseason. In August 1961, the CFL did win a game against American opposition, but the opponent was an American Football League team. The AFL saw it as embarrassing and chose never to play the CFL again.
The western section of the CFL, formerly the Western Interprovincial Football Union, was a different matter. For decades, people in Eastern Canada viewed it as inferior to the eastern section. Its regular season also started far earlier than other leagues. Travel was a further obstacle, because teams still moved mostly by rail. It was not until 1961 that the NFL had a team reasonably close by rail to any western CFL city. That was the final year of interleague play. The American Football League of 1940 and 1941, a recognized rival of the NFL, had managed one such meeting. The Columbus Bullies, its champion, played the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a three-game series in 1941.
From 1967 to 1969, the NFL and the AFL played each other in exhibitions while heading toward their merger. The 1969 game between the Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins was the only time Vince Lombardi ever lost to an AFL team. It could be argued these were not truly interleague contests, since the NFL had already agreed to recognize the AFL's history and share a common draft. The 1968 games used an experimental rule with no extra point kicks, requiring a play from scrimmage to score one point. The World Football League adopted the rule in 1974, and the XFL did so in 2001.
After that, NFL teams occasionally faced non-league opponents, usually sending a rookie split squad. In 1969, the Atlanta Falcons rookies beat the Alabama Hawks of the Continental Football League 55-0. In 1972, the New York Jets rookies beat the Long Island Chiefs of the Seaboard Football League 29-3. In 1974, the Houston Oilers rookies narrowly beat the San Antonio Toros 13-7.
The 1976 All-Star Classic was the last game between an NFL team and a non-NFL team, as of 2025. That contrasts with MLS, the NBA and the NHL, whose teams play exhibitions against non-league clubs today.
In 2004, Hurricane Charley postponed a Tampa Bay game against Cincinnati from Saturday until Monday. Postponements are the lucky outcome. Because the games are exhibitions, suspended or cancelled preseason games are normally never made up.
In 2001, turf problems at Veterans Stadium cancelled a game between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Similar turf concerns led the league to cancel the 2016 Hall of Fame Game at the last minute. In 2017, flooding from Hurricane Harvey moved a Cowboys and Texans game from Houston to Arlington. The Texans had left Houston the previous Friday to play at New Orleans and were then diverted to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The day before the scheduled game, it was cancelled so the Texans could return home to their families. In 2021, a Cardinals and Saints exhibition was cancelled when Hurricane Ida was forecast to make landfall near New Orleans. Damage and power outages from Ida later forced the Saints to move their regular season opener against the Packers to Jacksonville.
Baseball causes its own trouble. In 2015, the Pittsburgh Steelers moved a Sunday evening game against the Green Bay Packers at Heinz Field to a 1 p.m. kickoff. The Pirates share a parking lot across at PNC Park, and ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball had moved a Pirates game to that evening. In 2025, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were due to host the Buffalo Bills on Saturday the 23rd of August. The Rays were playing at George M. Steinbrenner Field, because Hurricane Milton had badly damaged Tropicana Field the previous October. Their stadium shares parking lots with Raymond James Stadium. The Rays and their opponents, the Cardinals, agreed to a rare Saturday off-day and played Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
Teams have also taken preseason games to unusual stadiums. The Alamodome in San Antonio hosted games, as did Rogers Centre as part of the Bills Toronto Series. Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin, hosted one Green Bay Packers game a year until the late 1990s. The Citrus Bowl was once a common venue.
In June 2019, the Packers and Raiders announced a game for the 22nd of August 2019 at Investors Group Field in Winnipeg, home of the Blue Bombers. It was first proposed for Mosaic Stadium in Regina, but the CFL tenant there refused. The team feared it could not convert the field back to Canadian dimensions in time for a game the next day. In Winnipeg, the anchor points for Canadian goalposts sat within the NFL field. The concrete pad covering them was judged a safety hazard. Near game time, the teams chose an 80-yard field with no kickoffs, making the 10-yard line the goal line. Field goals and extra points were still allowed.
Also in 2019, the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams announced a game at Aloha Stadium in Hawaii on the 17th of August. The stadium had long hosted the Pro Bowl, and it was due to be condemned at the end of 2020.
Sean McVay has not played a single starter in the preseason since his first head coaching season in 2017, and other teams have since followed his lead. Instead of exhibitions, those teams schedule joint practices, where first-team players face other first-team players in a controlled setting. Preseason games are left for players on the bubble. Teams may carry 90 players through training camp and the preseason, but only 53 afterward. The games also tend to feature rote plays rather than the full playbook, especially on offense, to avoid tipping the hand of future regular season opponents.
Players have little reason to complain about the fine print, because they have little financial incentive to play at all. They receive only a training-camp per diem for these games, since salaries are not paid until the regular season. In effect, they play for free. Some players, coaches and journalists, and numerous fans, have objected to the four-game schedule. Owners kept endorsing it anyway. Every team still requires season-ticket holders to buy full-price tickets to two exhibition games. Complaints about that policy reached the U.S. Supreme Court and failed to change it. The games are an easy source of revenue, so they are unlikely to disappear soon.
In 2008, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell raised the possibility of shortening the exhibition season in favor of a longer regular season. One idea was that by 2012 the league would play two main exhibition games and an 18-game regular season. Supporters pointed to labor concerns about revenue and to widespread dissatisfaction among players and fans. Veterans also train year-round, so they no longer need exhibitions to get back into playing shape. The proposal was rejected in collective bargaining, after the players' union raised concerns about fatigue and injuries. By 2016, another idea was gaining what was called growing sentiment among owners. It would eliminate the last preseason game and add a league-wide bye week before the regular season.
On the 10th of June 2020, NFL Network reported that the league and the players' union were discussing shortening or even eliminating the four-game preseason. The COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted off-season activities. On the 25th of June, the 2020 Hall of Fame Game, scheduled for the 6th of August, was cancelled along with the induction ceremony. On the 1st of July, media outlets reported the league would cut the preseason to two weeks by cancelling Weeks 1 and 4. The regular season was still due to begin on Thursday the 10th of September 2020. On the 3rd of July, the union voted to push for eliminating the preseason entirely, with extended isolated practice sessions in its place. On the 21st of July, a week before the scheduled opening of training camp, the union told its members that the league had cancelled all preseason games.
In 2021, the NFL Competition Committee extended the regular season to 17 games across eighteen weeks. The preseason fell to three games per team, though the two teams in the Hall of Fame Game still play four. A rule change that year also abolished overtime in preseason games. That same year, the Baltimore Ravens and John Harbaugh claimed the record for consecutive preseason wins with 20, overtaking the record held by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers.
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Common questions
What is the NFL preseason?
The NFL preseason is the period each year in which teams play several exhibition games before the regular season starts. It opens in early August with the Hall of Fame Game, followed by three weekends of games.
How many games are in the NFL preseason?
Since 2021, each NFL team plays three preseason games, while the two teams in the Hall of Fame Game play four. From 1970 through 1977, teams played six exhibition games.
Who decides NFL preseason matchups?
The NFL schedules all preseason matchups and sets every date and time. Since 2002, individual teams have been allowed to negotiate their own deals to play each other.
Why do NFL coaches rest starters in the NFL preseason?
Coaches rest starters because the games are used mainly to evaluate players on the bubble of making the team. Sean McVay has played no starters in the preseason since 2017, and teams may carry 90 players in camp but only 53 afterward.
When was the NFL preseason cancelled?
The 2020 NFL preseason was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the 21st of July 2020, the players' union told its members that the league had cancelled all preseason games.
When did an NFL team last play a non-NFL team in the preseason?
The 1976 All-Star Classic is the last game between an NFL team and a non-NFL team, as of 2025. The College All-Star Game had been played in Chicago from 1934 to 1976, except 1974.
All sources
36 references cited across the entry
- 1NewsNFL's New Rules Include Expanded Number Options, No Preseason OvertimeSmith, Scott — April 21, 2021
- 2NewsThree Football Families, Linked by PhilosophiesJudy Battista — 4 February 2012
- 12All Those A.F.L.'s: N.F.L. Competitors, 1935-1941Bob Braunwart — 1979
- 14News25 Significant "Meaningless" NFL GamesMark L. Ford — Pro Football Researchers Association — 2000
- 18Galaxy Extends SU Sports Deal Through 2013 • CNYRadio.com / CNYTVNews.compontiac59 says — Cnyradio.com
- 20NewsAttempt to host NFL preseason game in Regina stopped short of the goal lineMarch 29, 2019
- 21NewsRaiders, Packers play preseason game on 80-yard fieldGordon Grant — 22 August 2019
- 27No Starters: Revisiting How Sean McVay Changed The NFL PreseasonJacob Brockhoff — 2024-08-19
- 292024 NFL Roster Bubble: Biggest Names Who Could Be CutKristopher Knox
- 30Why NFL preseason defensive tendencies matter when planning for the regular seasonArjun Menon — 2021-09-02
- 31Exhibition overkillStarkey, Joe — 2006-08-17
- 35NewsNFLPA votes to play no preseason games ahead of 2020 seasonNick Shook — 4 July 2020