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LANDOVER, MD - SEPTEMBER 10: Terry McLaurin #17 of the Washington Commanders runs after a catch as Budda Baker #3 of the Arizona Cardinals defends during the first half of the game at FedExField on September 10, 2023 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Editor’s note: Each day, Hogs Haven compiles a collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East, the NFL and sports in general, with a sprinkling of other stuff. Enjoy!
Commanders links
Articles
Commanders
5 things to know about Washington’s 2026 schedule
1. Rare back-to-back road games to start the season.
The Commanders have benefited from starting the season at home for the last few years. Since 2020, they have had a home opener five times and won four of them, the most recent being their 21-6 victory over the New York Giants.
This season, not only will the Commanders kick things off on the road, but they’ll also be away from Northwest Stadium in Week 2 as well.
It’s rare for Washington to start the season with back-to-back road matchups. It’s only happened three times in the last 43 years, with the last time coming in 2012 during Robert Griffin III’s rookie year. The other two occasions in recent memory were in 2001 during Marty Schottenheimer’s first season as the franchise’s head coach and in 1982, when Washington won its first Super Bowl.
The Commanders will face two of the better teams in the division for those matchups. They’ll open the season against the Philadelphia Eagles for the third time since 2019 and then travel to AT&T Stadium to face the Dallas Cowboys. Both teams are particularly tough to beat on the road. The Eagles have not lost a Week 1 home opener since 2010, while the Cowboys are 31-18-1 at AT&T Stadium since 2020.
However, it would provide positive momentum for the Commanders if they managed to get a 2-0 start against two division rivals.
Heavy.com
Commanders ‘Really Like’ Jacory Croskey-Merritt Challenger
Finding unheralded running backs who can cut it in the NFL has become a happy habit for the Washington Commanders, who “really like” a free-agent addition with the “explosive” talent to challenge last year’s late-round draft find Jacory Croskey-Merritt for carries this season.
Undrafted backfield threat Robert Henry Jr. has the Commanders “intrigued,” according to ESPN’s John Keim. He explained on The John Keim Report how Henry is “going to be one to watch in training camp. To what degree? I don’t know. I know there’s some people here are intrigued by him because he had a game against Texas A&M in college where he ran for 177 yards, made guys miss. Like that stuff opens eyes. So like, hey, let’s see him here. He’s one of the undrafted guys that I think will be one to watch.”
Podcasts & videos
NFC East links
Bleeding Green Nation
Ranking the best Eagles road trips for 2026
7. Washington Commanders, Week 8, Sunday, No. 1, 8:20 p.m.
What an absolute dump. Know what’s worse than a dilapidated stadium in the early afternoon? A dilapidated stadium at night. The Commanders play in the middle of nowhere and it’s hard to get both into and out of the stadium grounds. A quick day trip for a game like this makes sense if you’re on one of those large fan-centric buses, but with a trip of roughly two-and-a-half hours before even taking traffic into consideration, those are much more palatable for 1 p.m. games rather than prime-time ones.
Oh, yeah, Northwest Stadium has the worst sight lines of any NFL home, too.
Hard pass!
Blogging the Boys
Cowboys schedule 2026: Instant predictions for all 17 games
Week 2: Commanders at Cowboys
The Cowboys get off to a strong NFC East start by winning two games in a row in the division. The Cowboys offense at home will be too much for the Commanders defense. We’ll also get a second look at how a Christian Parker defense deals with a mobile quarterback.
Week 18: Cowboys at Commanders
Who knows if this game will mean anything to either franchise at this point in the season? We might see a lot of backups. Or, it may mean everything to one or both of them. We’re taking the view the Cowboys have locked in their playoff position and rest some starters. Commanders win.
Cowboys loss: 10-7 record
Big Blue View
NY Giants schedule 2026: Instant predictions for all 17 games
Week 5: Oct. 11 — Giants at Washington Commanders
One question: Will Jayden Daniels be healthy? That really is THE question for this game, and I think we have to assume that he will be. Scary Terry might finally start to slow down this year, but the duo of Luke McCaffrey and Antonio Williams (2026 3rd, Clemson) could pick up the slack. I would also expect the Dan Quinn to have his rebuilt defense playing well by this point
Week 10: Nov. 12 — Giants vs. Commanders (TNF)
The Giants show up to get their revenge in primetime at home. I think the Giants are the more talented team, and that will show itself in the rematch, especially on a short turnaround from the previous week.
Final thoughts
Is predicting a 10-7 record optimistic for a team that finished 4-13 the year before? Certainly, at least on the face of it. However, the Giants had double-digit leads as underdogs fivetimes last year, only to blow them late in the game. Had the Giants not blown those leads, we’d be talking about a team that went 9-7 with a rookie quarterback and without their best receiver and running back.
NFL league links
Articles
The Athletic
How to watch the NFL in 2026: Full guide to streaming, cable and TV schedule
If you hope to watch it all, you will need access to 10 platforms: Netflix, Prime Video, NFL Network, NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN, Paramount+, YouTube TV and NFL Sunday Ticket.
Subscriptions to live TV streaming services such as Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and DirecTV will get you access to games airing on CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN. YouTube TV worked out a 2025 contract dispute with ESPN that had blacked out NFL games for two weeks. There is also a joint ESPN Unlimited and Fox One bundle for $39.99 per month that will give you full access to games on ESPN and Fox, respectively.
Discussion topics
Awful Announcing
The NFL is slowly killing the Sunday afternoon window
An analysis of the NFL TV schedule since 2016 shows that the NFL has steadily shifted inventory away from the traditional Sunday regional windows on CBS and Fox and into standalone packages.
An Awful Announcing analysis of the schedule data found that, this year, the NFL is scheduled to air 197 Sunday-afternoon games. That’s down from 198 in 2025 and from 211 in 2021, the first year of the NFL’s expanded 18-week schedule.
The 2026 total is also one less than the number of Sunday afternoon games in 2016, when the NFL had one fewer week in the regular season.
The NFL’s Sunday regional windows have long been the bedrock of the league’s appeal. Unlike other major American team sports, which schedule games throughout the week, the NFL has long aired the bulk of its games at 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. ET on Sundays. Since 1998, those Sunday games have aired exclusively on CBS or Fox.
ESPN
NFL pushes back on criticism of streaming games
The NFL is defending its expanded lineup of games on streaming platforms amid criticism from President Donald Trump and scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department.
While discussing this week’s schedule release with reporters, NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder on Friday suggested the league has no intention of pulling back from its partnerships with streaming services.
“We love our model,” he said. “We think we have the most fan-friendly model there is of any sport or entertainment as far as distribution.”
The NFL airs 87% of its games on free broadcast networks CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC, according to league officials. But Schroeder argued that the league is actually meeting consumers where they are in an era of cord-cutting by adding games on platforms such as Netflix.
“We think broadcast [networks] have been an incredible home,” he said. “And, now, we also know fans are increasingly spending their time on other platforms as well. They tune into broadcast for the NFL and that’s where we want to be. But we also want to be on these platforms with a limited amount of our games where we know our NFL fans are already as well.
“When we’re going onto Netflix, we’re going onto a platform that is already massively adopted and a huge number of viewers on that platform already, including a huge number of NFL fans.”
aBit o’Twitter
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