As the NFL continues its expansion, Philadelphia Eagles legend Jason Kelce has raised concerns about the league moving away from one of its most cherished traditions. The NFL’s Sunday broadcasts have been the backbone of the league’s popularity. However, with several new players coming into the broadcasting space, like Netflix and Prime Video, the league has scheduled several marquee clashes outside of Sunday.

While talking about this on his podcast, Kelce expressed “worry” over the possibility of this increased split leading to a shift from the traditional Sunday broadcast.

“It’s an institution, the NFL playing games on Sunday. With every day that we keep adding in there, we’re getting away from that just a little bit,” Jason Kelce said on his New Heights podcast. “And I worry that I think the game got big. One of the reasons it got so popular and big because Sunday is the NFL, and everybody sets their week apart to tune in to their games that were happening on Sunday, and you’re watching kind of all of them now take place across, I mean, Sunday ticket. I worry that we’re getting away from that just a little bit.”

The Eagles legend’s concerns stem from the NFL adding too many games all over the week instead of scheduling to Sunday. Kelce’s “worry” is further justified with an analysis by Awful Announcing of the schedule data.

The report reveals that the NFL will broadcast 197 Sunday afternoon games this year. While this number is just one short of the 198 games in 2025, it’s a significant decrease from the 211 Sunday fixtures in 2021, the first season of the expanded 18-week schedule. Another alarming sign is that the 2026 figure is also one less than the number of Sunday games in 2016, when the league still had a shorter regular season.

While the statistical evidence of a drop in Sunday games is evident, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution, Hans Schroeder, believes the league has continued running games in the traditional windows as well.

“I think you look across the games and the landscape and the schedule, and certainly it’s evolved a little bit, but the bulk of the games are still on Sunday,” Schroeder said.

There was an increased number of standalone windows in this year’s schedule. There were 23 games this year on standalone windows, which is 8 more than in 2025. This could also be attributed to the increased number of games going to the streaming platforms. Netflix recently added five games to its yearly window of games, three more than last season. Similarly, even networks like Fox, CBS, and NBC also have new deals this season to add standalone games. Prime Video also added a standalone Black Friday game to its Thursday Night Football package.

Despite a slate of games added during the week, the NFL still has a majority of its fixtures on Sunday. But with this number gradually decreasing year by year, there could be a time in the future when the NFL’s own Sunday may not be the only significant day for the league’s games. A concern, largely created by streaming services entering the broadcasting game.

The decision to distribute games to streaming platforms has already led the league to face a DOJ investigation and public backlash over its decision to present more games to platforms like Netflix and Prime Video. But despite this backlash, the NFL has reinstated its support for these streaming services.

NFL defends its stance on streaming games despite DOJ probe

With the league attempting to adopt the new world order in sports broadcasting, it has faced criticism from President Donald Trump and scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department. But despite this backlash, NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder expressed that the league will not backpedal on its partnerships with streaming services.

“We love our model,” he said. “We think we have the most fan-friendly model there is of any sport or entertainment as far as distribution. We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home. And, now, we also know fans are increasingly spending their time on other platforms as well. They tune into broadcasts for the NFL, and that’s where we want to be.

“But we also want to be on these platforms with a limited amount of our games, where we know our NFL fans are already as well. When we’re going onto Netflix, we’re going onto a platform that is already massively adopted and a huge number of viewers on that platform already, including a huge number of NFL fans.”

The league broadcasts approximately 88% of NFL games on free television. Streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube, three of the world’s largest video streaming platforms, receive the remaining 12% of games. But despite this lower number of fixtures, last year’s Christmas Day game between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings set the record for the most-streamed NFL game in U.S. history, averaging 27.5 million.

This indicates the streaming platform can attract more viewers, especially with its growing reach in over 200 countries, justifying the NFL’s decision to back these services. However, the costs associated with watching these games on streaming platforms are considered unreasonable by leaders and members of the NFL community.

With these changing times, Jason Kelce’s concerns hold weight as Sunday afternoon games continue to quietly decline. While the NFL defends its streaming deals, the gradual spread of games across the week risks moving away from the tradition that helped the league reach the position it finds itself today.