The 2026 NFL Wild Card Weekend schedule was released on Sunday night, and one scheduling decision stood out as a surprise.

The first-round matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears was scheduled for Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on Prime Video. This is a game that was expected to land on Sunday, either with the Fox 4:30 p.m. slot or with the Sunday Night Football slot on NBC. Instead, the San Francisco 49ers-Philadelphia Eagles game landed on Fox, and the Los Angeles Chargers-New England Patriots game got the SNF slot.

The Bears and Packers averaged 27. 9 million viewers for a Fox Sunday broadcast in Week 14, and they averaged 21.3 million viewers during a Fox Saturday night broadcast in Week 16 that turned into an instant classic. Each game was a thriller featuring a historic NFL rivalry that includes a major-market draw in Chicago. So, the assumption was that this would be an extremely appealing matchup for the league and television networks.

On Monday, Jeff Agrest of the Chicago Sun-Times provided more details on the league’s decision to put Packers-Bears on Saturday night on Prime Video.

Agrest reports that all of CBS, Fox, ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video wanted to carry the Packers-Bears game or the 49ers-Eagles game, with each game being viewed close enough from a television appeal perspective “that the league could flip a coin.” He notes that the instinct for the league is to typically put the highest-profile game in the 3:30 p.m. Sunday slot, and the next most-wanted game in the SNF slot.

However, Agrest reports that the NFL “chose to lean into its burgeoning relationship with Prime Video’s owner, Amazon” and “wants streaming to be a significant part of its media rights.”

Most of the discussion within the NFL, which has final say on the schedule, was about what to do with the other game. Normally, it would be played at 7 p.m. Sunday, but the NFL chose to lean into its burgeoning relationship with Prime Video’s owner, Amazon. In the end, it granted the league’s longest-running rivalry to its newest weekly partner for 7 p.m. Saturday.

While the NFL remains committed to keeping games on broadcast TV, it wants streaming to be a significant part of its media rights. 

Agrest also explains that the league wants to draw a younger audience, and putting high-profile games on a popular streaming platform like Prime Video helps that growth.

One of the NFL’s goals was to draw a younger audience, and according to Prime, it has. The company said “TNF” this season drew an audience with a median age of 49.4, almost seven years younger than audiences watching NFL games on linear networks. 

Additionally, Agrest notes that the Ravens-Steelers thriller was basically a playoff game on Sunday Night Football, so that factored into the NFL’s decision not to award NBC arguably the highest-profile draw in the Wild Card round as well.

When planning the wild-card schedule, the NFL takes Week 18 and the divisional round into account. NBC, in particular, wanted Packers-Bears for “Sunday Night Football,” but considering it essentially had a playoff game in Ravens-Steelers on Sunday, it was passed over. That figures to give the network a good matchup in a preferred time slot next weekend.

So, it appears that this decision is a push from the NFL — and potentially the very powerful Amazon as well — to draw more attention to Prime Video and the streaming world, and to try to grow a younger audience. And NBC might have removed itself from Packers-Bears SNF consideration due to carrying the Ravens-Steelers game in Week 18.

Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit will have the Packers-Bears call for Prime Video on Saturday night at Soldier Field.