Seven games is the biggest single day of NFL preseason Week 1, and the question almost everyone types before kickoff is the same one: what channel is this on? Saturday, Aug. 15, has three different answers to that, and only one of them is a channel. Three games run on NFL Network. Three more never touch a national TV channel at all and live on a streaming tier instead. And one game on this card has no national feed of any kind, TV or streaming, which is worth knowing before you spend twenty minutes hunting for it.
That split is the whole day, and it has nothing to do with which games are good.
The Quick Answer
There are seven NFL preseason games today, Saturday, Aug. 15: three at 1 p.m. ET (noon CT), two at 4 p.m. ET (3 p.m. CT), Eagles at Ravens at 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CT) and Cowboys at Seahawks at 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CT). NFL Network has three of them; ESPN Unlimited streams three more; the rest is local. The full grid with every local station, the streaming route for each game, the live spread beside all seven, and the one game nobody is carrying nationally are all below.
All 7 NFL Preseason Games Today
Kickoff times and broadcast assignments below are Saturday's confirmed schedule. Odds were pulled at 3:55 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 15, from the live NFL odds screen, which stacks the books posting these games on one page.
| Time (ET / CT) | Game | National | Local TV | Odds / status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:00 P.m. / 12:00 P.m. | Carolina at Buffalo | None | WIVB (Buffalo), WSOC-TV Ch. 9 (Charlotte) | Final: Buffalo 29, Carolina 14 |
| 1:00 P.m. / 12:00 P.m. | Cleveland at Chicago | NFL Network | FOX32 (Chicago) | Final: Chicago 34, Cleveland 10 |
| 1:00 P.m. / 12:00 P.m. | Minnesota at NY Giants | ESPN Unlimited (stream) | None listed | Final: Minnesota 13, NY Giants 10 |
| 4:00 P.m. / 3:00 P.m. | LA Rams at Kansas City | NFL Network | KSHB (Kansas City), KCBS-TV (Los Angeles) | Chiefs -1.5, total 36.5 |
| 4:00 P.m. / 3:00 P.m. | Jacksonville at New Orleans | ESPN Unlimited (stream) | FOX30 (Jacksonville), Fox 8 (New Orleans) | Saints -3, total 36.5 |
| 7:00 P.m. / 6:00 P.m. | Philadelphia at Baltimore | ESPN Unlimited (stream) | NBC 10 (Philadelphia) | Eagles -3.5, total 36.5 |
| 8:00 P.m. / 7:00 P.m. | Dallas at Seattle | NFL Network | KING 5 (Seattle) | Seahawks -3, total 36.5 |
The row that jumps out is Minnesota at the Giants. Per ESPN's broadcast data it is the only game on the card with a national feed and no local TV station attached to it, which means the streaming tier was not a convenience there, it was the only way in. The three 1 p.m. games were already final when this board was pulled, and the early window went to the home team twice: Chicago handled Cleveland 34-10 and Buffalo beat Carolina 29-14, while Minnesota took the only close one 13-10 on the road. If you are picking this up in the afternoon, the four to plan around are the two 4 p.m. kicks and the two night games.
What's On NFL Network Today
Three games, one per window, so the network never has two running at once: Cleveland at Chicago in the early slot, the Rams at Kansas City at 4 p.m. ET, and Dallas at Seattle as the 8 p.m. ET nightcap. With NFL Network and nothing else, that is your Saturday, and it is a reasonable one. It also happens to include the tightest number on the board: Kansas City is only a 1.5-point favorite against the Rams, the shortest spread of the four games still to be played.
The Games That Are Not On A National Channel
This is where people get stuck. Minnesota at the Giants, Jacksonville at New Orleans and Philadelphia at Baltimore all carry a national distribution label, but that label is ESPN Unlimited, the streaming tier, not a television channel you can find by scrolling your guide. Two of the three do have a local station: FOX30 in Jacksonville and Fox 8 in New Orleans for the Saints game, NBC 10 in Philadelphia for the Eagles. The Vikings game has neither a national channel nor a listed local partner, so streaming is the whole route.
That leaves the promise from the top of this page. Carolina at Buffalo is the only game Saturday with no national feed at all, on TV or streaming. It is a local-only broadcast on WIVB in Buffalo and WSOC-TV Channel 9 in Charlotte, and outside those two markets the answer is NFL+, which carries preseason games out of market. That is the single most useful thing to know about this schedule: the game hardest to find is not a scheduling accident you can reason your way around, and no amount of channel-surfing will produce it.
How To Stream NFL Preseason Games Today
Three routes cover the whole card. NFL+ handles the out-of-market preseason broadcasts, which is the answer for the local-only games when you live somewhere else. ESPN Unlimited carries the three games above. And inside a team's home market, the local station's own app or a live-TV service that carries that station is the way, because out-of-market preseason products black out the game you could already pull off an antenna.
One practical note that trips people up every August: preseason blackout rules follow your location, not your team, so a Bills fan in Charlotte gets the WSOC feed and a Bills fan in Denver needs NFL+.
The Odds Column, And Why It Keeps Moving
Four of Saturday's seven games are not on NFL Network, and that matters more than it sounds like it should. If you have money on a game you cannot watch, the inactive report is doing the work your eyes would otherwise do, and in preseason that report is the entire handicap. A confirmation that a starting quarterback is playing a series can move one of these numbers a full point.
You can watch it happen on this card. When we posted our NFL preseason picks for today Saturday morning, the board there had Philadelphia at -4.5 in Baltimore; by the 3:55 p.m. ET pull above it was -3.5. That is a full point of movement toward 3, the most important number in football, inside a single afternoon. Anyone who took Baltimore at the morning number is holding a better number than the 3:55 p.m. ET market was offering, which is the shape closing line value takes, though it only becomes CLV once the game actually closes. The Eagles-Ravens and Cowboys-Seahawks game pages break the two night games down individually.
The other reason to keep a screen open: these are the softest lines of the year, and books disagree with each other more in August than in any other month. Here is what mid-afternoon line shopping actually turned up on the two night games, with the best price on each side and the book posting it:
| Game | Side | Best price | Book |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia At Baltimore | Eagles -3.5 | -104 | NoVig |
| Philadelphia At Baltimore | Ravens +3.5 | +102 | NoVig |
| Philadelphia At Baltimore | Ravens moneyline | +172 | Rebet |
| Dallas At Seattle | Seahawks moneyline | -138 | NoVig |
| Dallas At Seattle | Cowboys moneyline | +135 | NoVig |
The Baltimore moneyline is the row worth studying, and not because it is a bargain. The best available price on the Ravens was +172 at Rebet, against a true-odds estimate of +177 on that same side. The number you could actually take was short of the fair-price number, so that particular bet graded out negative, not positive. The edge people assume is sitting in every August line was not sitting in this one, and that is the useful discipline: check whether the fair price and the posted price actually diverge before deciding a soft market has handed you something. Our guide to betting the NFL preseason and the primer on NFL key numbers cover why 3 and 7 decide so many of these.
Shopping the card: every book posting Saturday's seven games sits on one page on the live NFL odds screen. Code PRESEASONTV20 takes 20% off OddsShopper Pro if you want the full board rather than one app's price.
Free Picks And The Rest Of The Card
Want someone else's read before the 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. kicks? The free expert picks hub posts plays across the board. If you want to go back and see how the early window was handicapped before it kicked, each of those three has its own page: Browns-Bears, Panthers-Bills and Vikings-Giants.
NFL Preseason TV Schedule FAQ
How many NFL preseason games are on today? Seven, the biggest single day of NFL preseason Week 1. Three kicked off at 1 p.m. ET (noon CT), two at 4 p.m. ET (3 p.m. CT), Eagles at Ravens at 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CT) and Cowboys at Seahawks at 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CT).
What channel are the NFL preseason games on today? NFL Network has three nationally: Browns at Bears, Rams at Chiefs and Cowboys at Seahawks. Three more stream nationally on ESPN Unlimited instead of airing on a national channel: Vikings at Giants, Jaguars at Saints and Eagles at Ravens. Panthers at Bills has no national feed at all and is local-only on WIVB in Buffalo and WSOC-TV Channel 9 in Charlotte.
How do I stream NFL preseason games today? NFL+ carries preseason out of market, so it covers the local-only broadcasts when you are outside both teams' markets. ESPN Unlimited carries three of Saturday's games. Inside a home market, use the local station's own app or a live-TV service that carries it.
What are the odds on tonight's games? At 3:55 p.m. ET the Eagles were 3.5-point favorites in Baltimore with a 36.5 total, and Seattle was a 3-point favorite against Dallas with a 36.5 total. Preseason numbers move fast on inactive reports, so read them off a live screen rather than a morning post.
So the whole day reduces to three lists. NFL Network has Browns-Bears, Rams-Chiefs and Cowboys-Seahawks. ESPN Unlimited has Vikings-Giants, Jaguars-Saints and Eagles-Ravens. Panthers-Bills has neither, and outside Buffalo and Charlotte it lives on NFL+. None of that tracks which games are worth watching, which is exactly why it is worth looking up instead of guessing. Sort the channel first. The number is the part that is still moving.
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