When you picture Jimmy Fallon at his desk, there have always been actors beside him, musicians performing, and Hollywood stars playing ridiculous games. Then football started creeping into the picture. In 2015, Fallon took The Tonight Show beyond its usual late-night setting for a post-Super Bowl episode in Phoenix, where more than 42,000 people chased roughly 1,300 seats for the taping. Patriots players Brandon LaFell, Danny Amendola and LeGarrette Blount were among the surprise guests, while Fallon and The Roots were joined by a parade of pop stars for a victory-song performance.

It wasn’t a one-night fling with the NFL, either. Fallon returned after Super Bowl LII in 2018, and NBC later expanded the experiment beyond football’s biggest game. After a few quiet years, the partnership resurfaced in 2024, when Fallon returned to the postgame slot after Colts-Jets. That episode didn’t hit the air until 12:42 a.m. ET, yet still drew 1.77 million viewers, the show’s biggest audience since its NFL season-opener broadcast that September. That revival turned into something bigger in 2025, and NBC is now bringing it back again.

“We’re thrilled to be teaming up with NBC Sports again this year for these Sunday night episodes,” the showrunner of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Chris Miller, said in a statement on Tuesday (via Latenighter).

Fallon will host four special editions of The Tonight Show following Sunday Night Football games during the 2026 season, beginning September 27 after the Los Angeles Rams face the Denver Broncos, with Sylvester Stallone and Luke Bryan already booked for the first one.

Fallon’s next three assignments take place on November 8 after the game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Chicago Bears, on November 15 after the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Cincinnati Bengals, and on January 10 after the final regular-season game.

Fallon already began his NFL duties this week, with The Tonight Show holding a post-game episode right after the season opener of the defending champions, the Seattle Seahawks, against the New England Patriots at Lumen Field in Seattle on Wednesday. In what was a rematch of Super Bowl LX, which the Seahawks had won 29-13, the reigning champions came out on top again with a 13-10 win. The guests in this episode featured Matthew McConaughey, Alix Earle, and a musical performance by Riley Green.

This run of episodes isn’t a spontaneous plan made by NBC and Fallon, but a construction of a proven property, along with producers Miller and Gerard Bradford.

How Jimmy Fallon Hit It Out of the Park With 2025 NFL Crossovers

Fallon has been hosting his late-night show on NBC since 2009. The two parties are aware what they bring to the table, and with the NFL added to the mix, the idea seems bound to succeed. All four episodes of last year’s NFL crossovers became part of the show’s 10 highest-rated episodes.

For example, if you take the Sunday Night special after the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Steelers on October 26, the episode was delayed and didn’t start until after 12:30 a.m. ET, but still managed to record 1.8 million viewers, including 573,000 adults aged 18-49, which would also be 66 percent and 247 percent higher than the show’s average for its seasons in those demographics, respectively, per Awful Announcing.

Moreover, The Tonight Show and the NFL’s partnership predates last year’s special crossovers. Earlier, in 2015 and 2018, Fallon hosted post-Super Bowl shows. And a year after the second assignment, he came back with five more episodes following Sunday Night Football in 2019 as well.

There was also a post-Sunday Night Football episode on November 17, 2024, right after the Indianapolis Colts’ 28-27 win over the New York Jets. The president of NBC Sports, Rick Cordella, praised how Fallon and “the show have been great collaborators with NBC Sports over the years.”

Although not NFL-related, Fallon also co-anchored NBC’s coverage of the closing ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympics. There have also been plenty of NFL stars and former staff who have appeared as guests on his show over the years, including the likes of legend Tom Brady, former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, and five-time MVP and two-time Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning.

A show that already has over 100 million followers across all social media platforms has only benefited from including sports in its regimen. Even Miller himself acknowledged the growth of the show due to its “sports guests and coverage,” as it earned a massive 900 million views from it last year alone.

But the numbers just seem to proliferate each year, with the total views for 2026 so far soon to cross the one billion mark, and the NFL season is just one game in.

This number game clearly shows why Fallon and NBC would want to link up together once again as the 2026 season kicks off, but will they be able to generate, or even break, their previous viewership records with the help of NFL stardom? That is the lingering question that probably already has an answer in the affirmative.