2023 NFL schedule rumors: NFL planning to hold first Monday tripleheader in league history on Christmas Day

For the first time in NFL history, it looks like the league is planning to hold a Monday tripleheader with the unprecedented event expected to happen on Christmas Day. According to NBC Sports, the league is expected to schedule three games for Monday, Dec. 25 this year. 

Historically, when Christmas has fallen a Monday, the NFL has scheduled two games for the occasion like it did in both 2006 and 2017. However, the league will be bumping it up to three this year and that likely has to do with how successful Christmas games have been over the past few seasons. 

The NFL has scheduled a total of six Christmas games over the past three years — one in 2020 and two in 2021 and three in 2022 — and they all registered huge TV ratings. Last year’s Christmas game between the Packers and Dolphins was one of the 10 most watched regular-season games of the 2022 season with 25.9 million viewers. 

The NFL has been playing regular-season games on Christmas since 1989 and in the 34 years since then, the league has been looking to utilize the holiday whenever possible. In 2004, the NFL played its first Christmas doubleheader ever, and now, 19 years later, we’re likely going to be seeing our first Monday tripleheader ever thanks to Christmas. 

Last year, the NFL played a Christmas tripleheader for the first time ever and now that the league is planning to do it for the second straight year, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this become a mainstay on the NFL schedule like the Thanksgiving tripleheader. However, the Christmas tripleheader will be slightly trickier to pull off since Christmas can sometimes fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday, which are two days when the NFL doesn’t normally schedule games. 

Christmas actually falls on a Wednesday in 2024, so we’ll know as soon as next season if the league plans to make the Dec. 25 tripleheader a regular event on the schedule.

As for the 2023 games, if the NFL sticks to the same Christmas schedule as last year, then the Monday games will be staggered throughout the day with kickoff times at 1 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:20 p.m. ET.