Eagles get rival Cowboys for NFL regular-season opener on Sept. 4

The Philadelphia Eagles will start defending their championship at home on Sept. 4 against the division rival Dallas Cowboys.

The matchup for the annual regular-season kickoff game was revealed on Monday by the NFL, the first in a series of announcements of notable games coming this week ahead of the full schedule release on Wednesday night.

The Cowboys-Eagles matchup will be on Thursday night, the first game in NBC’s package of primarily Sunday night games. NBC also announced that its streaming service, Peacock, will exclusively broadcast a Saturday night game in Week 17 on Dec. 27, a matchup that will be determined later from a pool of possible options based on how the playoff races have shaped up then.

Every team will be alive and well, of course, when the Eagles and Cowboys play in Week 1 for the first time in 25 years. Dallas has opened with a different NFC East opponent, the New York Giants, eight times since then.

This year, the matchup will feature the first game for the Cowboys under new coach Brian Schottenheimer and the expected return of quarterback Dak Prescott, who missed the second half of last season because of a hamstring injury that contributed to a 7-10 finish and their first absence from the playoffs since 2020. Including their annual Thanksgiving Day home games, the Cowboys have won seven straight Thursday games.

The NFL has opened the regular season with a Thursday night game since 2002, largely with the reigning Super Bowl champion as the home team, with a few exceptions. This will be only the fourth time an intra-division game was selected.

This will be the fourth game shown exclusively on Peacock, with broadcasts also available on NBC stations in the markets of the competing teams. Peacock had the Eagles’ opener last season against the Green Bay Packers in Brazil on a Friday night as well as an AFC wild-card game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 playoffs and a Week 16 game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers in 2023.

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