The NFL isn’t airing the week’s best game in Philadelphia. Here’s why.

The undefeated Miami Dolphins, flying high after dropping 70 points on the lowly Denver Broncos, will take on the Buffalo Bills Sunday in one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the NFL season.

But fans in Philadelphia and in other large markets won’t get to see Josh Allen face off against Tua Tagovailoa, thanks to quirks in the NFL’s schedule and TV rules.

The Eagles are playing the Washington Commanders at 1 p.m. on Fox Sunday, so most Birds fans wouldn’t have switched over to CBS to watch Dolphins-Bills, anyway. But thanks to the league’s TV rules, CBS3 isn’t airing a game at all at 1 p.m. — instead they’ll broadcast a mix of infomercials and competitive bull riding, along with highlights from Star Trek Day.

Why? Because of a long-standing NFL rule that networks can’t broadcast any game opposite a home team in its primary TV market. In Philadelphia’s case, that territory extends across 18 counties in three states, totaling nearly 3 million TV-watching homes, according to Nielsen.

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Outside of Weeks 1 and 18, the NFL airs three games in each TV market on Sunday afternoons. One network each week is given a doubleheader, meaning they air two games — one in the early 1 p.m. window, one in the later 4:25 p.m. window. This week Fox has the doubleheader, meaning CBS is only allowed to air one game in Philadelphia and other markets.

So in Philadelphia, fans will get a choice at 4:25 p.m. between two games: New England Patriots at Dallas Cowboys on Fox 29, or Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles Chargers on CBS3.

It’s not just Philadelphia that’s missing out. Dolphins-Bills also isn’t airing in three of the country’s top six TV markets — Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. Nationwide, Dolphins-Bills will be broadcast to 50% of the country.

Despite the limitations, there are options for motivated fans, such as heading to their nearest sports bar or signing up for NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTubeTV. And NFL fans in Philadelphia won’t have to deal with this issue much this year, since the Eagles are scheduled to play 1 p.m. Sunday games just three times.

Eagles fans will get to see the Dolphins on Oct. 22, when the Birds host Miami on Sunday Night Football in Week 7. A month later, the Bills will travel to Philadelphia to take on the Eagles at the Linc in Week 12 on Nov. 26.

The Jacksonville Jaguars take on the Atlanta Falcons at Wembley Stadium in London early Sunday morning, but you’ll need to be an ESPN+ subscriber to watch.

For the second straight season, the NFL has scheduled an international game to stream exclusively on ESPN+, the network’s subscription streaming service. A subscription to just ESPN+ will set you back $9.99 a month.

Calling Jaguars-Falcons on ESPN+ will be the network’s No. 2 crew, which features play-by-play announcer Chris Fowler and analysts Dan Orlovsky and Louis Riddick. Laura Rutledge will report from the sidelines of Wembley Stadium.

A kid-friendly version of the game will also stream on Disney+, swapping out the players with Toy Story style digital characters for an alternate-broadcast experience. ESPN did something similar in the NHL last season, using characters from the Disney Channel’s Big City Greens for a broadcast that felt like you were watching a video game.

It’s the first of five international NFL games, a tradition that dates back to 2005. The NFL breaks it across three countries — England, Germany, and Mexico, which isn’t hosting games this season due to renovations at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

Here’s the full schedule:

This season, Phillies fans needed to pay for several subscriptions to keep up with the team, with games airing on NBC Sports Philadelphia, Fox, ESPN, Apple TV+, and Peacock. In other words, not ideal.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is aware the deals have been frustrating to fans, but said they are necessary given the current media landscape.

“Look, I think fragmentation is not good for fans, and we understand that and its something we want to avoid,” Manfred said on the The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast this week.

Manfred pointed out Apple TV+’s Friday Night Baseball package came out of a bloc of national games that had previously appeared on ESPN and not on NBC Sports Philadelphia or other local regional sports networks. But those games come with an added cost when they stream exclusively on a subscription service, something Manfred said was necessary given the increase of cord cutting and the decline of regional sports networks.

“We would not have bought into that additional fragmentation, that is by adding Apple and Peacock, if we did not feel that we were in a transitional mode where it was really important to identify potential partners on the digital side that could help us adjust to the rapidly-changing media landscape,” Manfred said.

“What I would say to fans about this is bear with us,” Manfred added.” This is a step backward along the road to getting you more access to more games, more easily with less friction.”