The
National Football League regular season begins the weekend after
Labor Day in early September and ends in December or early January. It consists of 256 games, where each team plays 16 games during a 17-week period. Since 2012, the NFL schedule generally has games in one of five time slots during the week. A
game played on Thursday night, kicking off at 8:25 PM (
ET). The majority of games are played on Sunday, with most kicking off at 1:00 PM (ET), some late afternoon games starting at 4:05 or 4:25 PM (ET) and
one Sunday night game which starts at 8:30 PM (ET). A
Monday night game then starts at 8:30 PM (ET). In addition to these regularly scheduled games, there are occasionally games at other times, such as a or Saturday afternoon or evening, or the annual
Thanksgiving Day games. During the final week of the regular season, all games are held on Sunday.