The first game of the NFL season is usually played on a Thursday night, but that won't be happening this year. For just the second time in league history, the NFL will be kicking off on a Wednesday, so be sure to mark your calendar for 8:20 p.m. Opening the season on a Wednesday is so rare that the league has been doing its best over the past couple of weeks to remind people exactly when the game will be played.
In case you didn't know... Football starts Wednesday 😉NEvsSEA – Wednesday 8:20pm ET on NBC/PeacockStream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/muayov8Npk The opening game between the Seahawks and Patriots will be televised by NBC, which ended up taking its two lead NFL announcers -- Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth -- and throwing them in a commercial with the Hump Day camel in order to remind everyone that the first game of the year is being played on a Wednesday. The best way to get over the midweek hump?
NFL Kickoff - and it's only three weeks away! 🏈📺: Patriots vs Seahawks, Wednesday September 9 7ET on NBC & Peacock pic.twitter.com/TRaofO7ff1 So why in the world did the NFL decide to move the opener to Wednesday this year? The winner of the Super Bowl generally hosts the Thursday night opener in the following season, but the NFL made an exception this year due to the game in Australia. The Rams and 49ers will be kicking off at 10:35 a.m.
Australian time on Friday, but due to the time difference, that will be a Thursday night kickoff in the United States. The NFL still wanted to make sure the defending champs would officially play the first game of the season, so the league decided to move the Seahawks' game to Wednesday. The NFL is going into its 107th season, and over that span, the league has only opened the season with a Wednesday game one other time.
That came in 2012 when the NFL put the Cowboys-Giants opener on a Wednesday night so that it wouldn't conflict with Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. According to Pro Football Reference, there have only been two other seasons where a Wednesday game was played in Week 1 (1933, 1948), but it wasn't the opening game of the season. The Giants earned the right to host the opener in 2012 after beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl, which is exactly what the Seahawks did to earn the NFL opener this year.
The NFL's decision to put a game in Australia definitely won't be a one-time thing. Earlier this year, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that the league will be coming back on a regular basis. "There's no question that we're going to be playing here again," Goodell said.
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