After Week 15, the Patriots learn when they play the Broncos

Denver is one of four games in a Saturday pool

When the NFL released the 2026 schedule, four Week 17 games were left without a date: Washington at Jacksonville, Kansas City at the Chargers, the Rams at Tampa Bay and Denver at New England. Two of them will be played on Saturday, January 2, 2027. The other two go to Sunday, January 3.

NBC has published the Saturday windows. One game kicks off at 4:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, a slot the network lists as the NFL Holiday Special. The second goes at 8 p.m. ET as a Peacock exclusive. NFL.com says the dates and times for all four will be announced no later than immediately after Week 15.

For New England, Week 15 ends with its own Monday night game at Kansas City on December 21. So the answer to when the Broncos game will be played could land within a day or two of that trip.

Which game gets picked depends on the standings. Broncos Wire, writing when the schedule came out, put it plainly: if Denver and New England are both in contention late in the season, the matchup is a candidate for a standalone Saturday window. That is the charming part. Two January afternoons in a calendar built by thousands of cloud computers will be decided, in the end, by how two teams play in December.

Week 18 waits until Week 17 is over

The finale against Miami is held back even longer. The regular season ends on the weekend of January 9-10, 2027, and every Week 18 game is a division game. The league's flexible scheduling document says the Week 18 schedule will be announced at the conclusion of Week 17, which lets it place the games with playoff stakes into the Saturday slots and the final Sunday night game.

So a Patriots fan can know the opponent and the stadium for months, and the exact kickoff for about a week. According to the team, it will also be the second season in a row that ends with the Patriots and Dolphins meeting, which is a pleasing bit of symmetry for a rivalry that has had plenty of odd endings.

What else on the schedule can move

Flexible scheduling reaches beyond those two rows. These are the 2026 rules as the NFL publishes them:

• Sunday Night Football: flex can be used up to twice in Weeks 5-10 and in any week from 11 to 17.
• Monday Night Football: flex can be used in any week from 12 to 17.
• Thursday Night Football: flex can be used up to twice in Weeks 13-17.
• Notice: at least 12 days for Sunday night in Weeks 5-13 and for Monday night; generally at least 6 days for Sunday night in Weeks 14-17; generally at least 21 days for Thursday night.
• Afternoon shuffles: Sunday afternoon games can also shift between 1:00 p.m. and 4:05 or 4:25 p.m. ET.

Only Sunday afternoon games, or games still listed without a set time, can be moved into Sunday night. On the Patriots calendar that describes a long list, from the October 11 Raiders game through the December 27 trip to the Jets. The rules say what is possible. They do not say what the league will choose, and in late September nobody honestly can.

How to plan around it

My practical advice is modest. Treat any Sunday afternoon Patriots game after early October as a date you are sure of and a kickoff time you are almost sure of. Hold both January weekends loosely until the announcements come. The official NFL.com team schedule updates when a game moves, and we linked it on our full 2026 schedule page.

Watch the Munich game, too, though for a different reason. The kickoff there is fixed, and early, and we explain why the Patriots and Lions are playing in Germany on its own page.

Two blank rows look like unfinished paperwork. Read them another way and they are a promise: if these teams make December interesting, January will find them a better seat.