NFL's Thanksgiving holiday schedule that features five games is definitely no turkey

Colin Cowherd reacts to the announcement of the Dallas Cowboys hosting the Philadelphia Eagles on Thanksgiving this season, on FOX.

The old joke is that the NFL is so popular (and brazen) that it stole Sundays from the church. Well, the league's 2026 schedule, which will be unveiled Thursday evening, is trying to snatch the Thanksgiving holiday from the turkey.

The NFL is playing five games over the Thanksgiving holiday, and for the first time this year the league is going a step further by playing a game on Thanksgiving eve.

So, for those keeping score, the week of Thanksgiving will look like this on the NFL calendar: The league will play its regular slate of Sunday games on Nov. 22, then a Monday night game on Nov. 23, then the new Thanksgiving eve game on Nov. 25, three Thanksgiving Day games on Nov. 26, a Black Friday game on Nov. 27, then come back with a regular slate on Sunday, Nov. 29.

That's NFL games on six of eight days in late November.

NFL ANNOUNCES THAT INAUGURAL THANKSGIVING EVE GAME BETWEEN PACKERS AND RAMS WILL BE STREAMED ON NETFLIX

The league will kick off the holiday with its first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game featuring the Green Bay Packers at Los Angeles Rams on Netflix. That promises to be a good matchup of two playoff teams from a season ago.

Then on Thanksgiving Day, the league will come with its usual feast of three matchups at 1 p.m., 4:30 p.m. — both on Fox — and then the 8:20 nightcap. And those matchups are also fire.

It begins with the Chicago Bears visiting the Detroit Lions.

This is where we should acknowledge that in past years, the first game on Thanksgiving Day was something less than an appetizer to major action because the Lions were not often good and the NFC North was not often