The NFL is back (and bigger than ever) — here are some Canadians to watch

The 2026-27 NFL season begins tonight (that's right, on a Wednesday) with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the New England Patriots at 8:20 p.m. ET.

Normally, the NFL likes to kick things off on a Thursday night, and this is just the fifth Wednesday game since 1948. But, as part of its apparent quest to dominate every single day of the week and reach every corner of the globe, the world's richest sports league slotted tonight's Super Bowl rematch ahead of tomorrow night's showdown between the title-favourite Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.

Is the NFL — which has owned Sundays and Monday nights for decades and began taking over Thursday nights in 2006 — priming us for more games outside of its traditional days? It looks that way. After stealing Christmas from the NBA a few years ago and then adding an annual Black Friday game in 2023, the NFL is set to move into Thanksgiving Eve (who even knew that was a thing?) with the Rams facing the Green Bay Packers on Wednesday, Nov. 25. With Christmas falling on a Friday this year and some late-season Saturday games on tap as usual, NFL football will be played on every day of the week except Tuesday this season.

Meanwhile, a record nine games will be staged outside of the United States, in seven different countries. Paris joins Melbourne as a first-time host, while the NFL returns to London, Madrid, Munich, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. (Though Canadians have access to games in neighbouring U.S. cities like Seattle, Detroit and Buffalo, the NFL has not played a regular-season game in Canada since the Bills abandoned their lame annual "home" game in Toronto in 2013.)

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