NFL Taps Cowboys-Eagles Rivalry to Launch 2025 Season

The Eagles’ defense of their Super Bowl LIX title will begin against America’s Team.

NBC Sports announced its coverage plans Monday morning for the league’s Sept. 4 kickoff game from Lincoln Financial Field featuring a Cowboys-Eagles clash. As has been the league’s custom for more than two decades, the defending Super Bowl champion opens the NFL’s season with a primetime showcase at home, and the game in Philadelphia will feature a matchup involving one of the league’s top rivalries. 

The kickoff game is the start of a series of announcements planned over the next two days of key games involving each of the NFL’s domestic media-rights holders. Part of Tuesday’s planned unveilings will include the 2025 schedule of international contests led in part by a Sept. 5 game in São Paulo involving the Chiefs and Chargers that will be shown on YouTube. 

Those announcements will culminate with the release of the full 2025 regular-season schedule Wednesday night. That slate will feature a series of notable changes from last year, including an expanded presence of both international and Christmas games, and additional latitude for flex scheduling into Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. 

The NFL’s focus on maximizing the audience for every one of its 272 regular-season games also comes after a 2% decline in regular-season ratings in 2024.

Speculation on which of the Eagles’ eight 2025 home opponents would be in the kickoff game, among both fans and the league’s media partners, began immediately after the team’s overwhelming victory over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. 

Though the Eagles’ 2025 home schedule features other major opponents and 2024 playoff teams such as the Broncos, Commanders, Lions, and Rams, the selection of the Cowboys to start the season leans in to decades of history between Philadelphia and Dallas. Though recently supplanted by the Chiefs as the league’s top viewership draw, the Cowboys still are a major attraction nationally.

The team has also been in the midst of a significant transition with its roster, most recently bringing in wide receiver George Pickens following a trade with the Steelers.