The tradition of NFL on Sundays has remained constant over all these years, but being bombarded by games on just one day of the week was a little too much for fans. The league now has fewer games on the Sunday slate, as compared to recent years. Chris Simms is all for the idea, while Jason Kelce expressed some concerns

“I understand what’s being said here, but I don’t really get it,” Simms said on Pro Football Talk. “I mean, eight games sounds like music to my ears. We want 12 games and we can’t really see any of them, so we watch what, two out of the eleven that are on? …I don’t want seven games at 1 p.m. I can’t watch it all. There’s no way. It’s stupid. Are you telling me people’s Sundays are gonna be ruined because they’re gone?

“I like the standalone games. I enjoy being able to watch one at a time. There’s nothing worse to me on a Sunday when the whole slate and you go, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s 13 games today on Sunday!'”

The NBC veteran’s response was targeted at Jason Kelce’s comments about how the league is heading towards a crisis with its Sunday broadcasts.

“I worry that I think the game got big,” he said on the New Heights podcast. “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 2026 season will have 197 Sunday afternoon games, one less than last year’s 198 Sunday games. Both figures are lower than the 215 games scheduled for Sunday during the 2021 season, the first with the league’s 18-game expansion. The league has dialed back on things when they don’t work, like removing the Monday night doubleheader games this year. Likewise, the Sunday slate has been scaled back, while relying on other ways to cater to a diversified audience.

The NFL has still tried to keep Sunday nights special with the lineup. Last year, the schedule included eight games featuring playoff teams from last year, and five games with Super Bowl winners. Marquee teams like the Kansas City Chiefs get Sunday spots to give fans some blockbuster entertainment. But with the league trying to build a better stronghold on streaming platforms, some changes had to be made.

The NFL is leaning towards more standalone programming, and scaling back on Sunday games gives the league a chance to schedule more standalone games. That has led to Netflix and Prime Video being able to take up some games. The former has agreed to a new deal with the NFL and will now stream five games. Prime Video will be streaming the Black Friday game along with Thursday Night Football.

The league’s growing interest in streaming platforms has also received a lot of scrutiny from fans. But the NFL is confident that this move is going to

NFL defends its shift from traditional Sunday broadcasts

The NFL’s Executive Vice President of Media Distribution, Hans Schroeder, defended the new broadcast model by describing it as ” 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,” Schroder added, per ESPN. “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 number 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.”

87% of games are still aired on cable TV, where they are free to watch. But fans had expressed discontent over the subscription fees for the games broadcast on streaming platforms. Throughout the season, one may have to give up $1000 to watch these games online.

But the league is still transitioning with this new format, and sports on streaming platforms are the future. With time, fans have to make do with changes to keep up with the rest.