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As the 2020 NFL regular season comes to a close, fans will get an extra day of football (not an uncommon thing this year) in Week 15 as the schedule features two Saturday matchups. The AFC East-leading Buffalo Bills visit the Denver Broncos in the afternoon before the Carolina Panthers and the first-place Green Bay Packers square off in primetime.

Why are there NFL games on a Saturday?

As longtime NFL fans know, Saturday games aren’t uncommon at this point in the season. In normal years, the college football regular season and conference championship games are wrapped up by the time Week 15 of the NFL season rolls around and the league likes to schedule a few Saturday games in Week 15 and Week 16 (and some in the postseason as well) to bring in a few more viewers (code for advertising dollars) throughout the week as there’s less competition among football fans with no big college games on.

That won’t be the case this year as a number of college conference championships will be played this Saturday as COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the schedule this year, which has forced most conferences to shuffle things around, which is why it might be tough to find Saturday’s NFL games on your TV, which we’ll get to in a moment.

The 2020 NFL season marks the 49th time in the last 50 years in which the league has scheduled at least one game on a Saturday with 2013 being the lone exception.

Both Saturday games in Week 15 will be shown on the NFL Network

If you go looking for Saturday’s Week 15 NFL games on CBS, FOX, NBC, or ESPN, you’re going to run into some trouble as both are being shown on the NFL Network.

The Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos will kick off at 4:30 p.m. Eastern/1:30 p.m. Pacific with the Carolina Panthers and Green Bay Packers scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m. Eastern/5:15 p.m. Pacific.

The rest of the Week 15 schedule

NFL
NFL logo | Nic Antaya/Getty Images

And just because we’re so nice, here’s a look at the rest of the NFL Week 15 schedule as seen on NFL.com. (All times Eastern.)

Thursday, December 17

  • LA Chargers at Oakland Raiders, 8:20 p.m., FOX, NFL Network

Sunday, December 20

  • San Francisco 49ers at Dallas Cowboys, 1:00 p.m., CBS
  • New England Patriots at Miami Dolphins, 1:00 p.m., CBS
  • Jacksonville Jaguars at Baltimore Ravens, 1:00 p.m., CBS
  • Detroit Lions at Tennessee Titans, 1:00 p.m., CBS
  • Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts, 1:00 p.m., CBS
  • Seattle Seahawks at Washington Football Team, 1:00 p.m., FOX
  • Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings, 1:00 p.m., FOX
  • Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Atlanta Falcons, 1:00 p.m., FOX
  • Philadelphia Eagles at Arizona Cardinals, 4:05 p.m., FOX
  • New York Jets at LA Rams, 4:05 p.m, FOX
  • Kansas City Chiefs at New Orleans Saints, 4:25 p.m., CBS
  • Cleveland Browns at New York Giants, 8:20 p.m., NBC

Monday, December 21

  • Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals, 8:15 p.m., ESPN

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Luke Norris

Luke Norris began his sportswriting career in 2013 and joined Sportscasting in 2020. The former Section Editor of the NFL and Motorsports sections, he now spends his time here in the role of Senior Writer-Programmer. His well-rounded sports knowledge allows him to cover the NFL, NBA, PGA Tour, MLB, boxing, WWE, and NASCAR for Sportscasting.

Luke is an avid golfer who finds inspiration in the way sports can bring people together and provide a distraction from the real world. He hopes to provide a little entertainment or an escape from the real world with every article he writes, even if only for a few minutes.

In addition to his work here at Sportscasting, Luke’s work has appeared on  The Sportster, Inquisitr, GiveMeSport, FanSided, Yahoo! Fox Sports, and Sports Illustrated.