The American Football League (AFL) compensated differently: the 1960 championship game was moved back by a full week, being played on New Year's Day 1961, with Christmas Sunday being an off-week.
[1] Because of the length of the latter game, the NFL received numerous complaints, reportedly due to the fact that it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation.
The NFL also came under fire from some quarters for intruding on a traditional religious and family holiday, and a Kansas state legislator proposed a bill to ban the scheduling of future games on December 25.
Finally, in 1989, the NFL tried another Christmas Day game, Cincinnati at Minnesota, but it was a 9:00 p.m. EST Monday Night Football contest on ABC, thereby avoiding interfering with family dinners.
The league added a bye week to its schedule in 1990, making Christmas Day permanently fall during the regular season.
Any playoff team playing their final regular season game on Thursday would have had a significant competitive advantage with the extra rest heading into the postseason.
The league did however hold rare Friday games on Christmas Day in 2009 and 2020, both of which were considered special editions of Thursday Night Football.
This became largely a result after the NFL expanded from a 16-game schedule to 17 games in 2021, putting the holiday to the third-to-last week of the regular season.
[9] Under the NFL's next round of television deals, which began in 2023 and will run through 2033, Fox acquired the rights to air special Christmas Day games as the schedule permits.
[15][16] The Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, Pittsburgh Steelers, and two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs were selected for the 2024 games.
[17] All four teams played the previous Saturday to make the turnaround between games similar to that of a Sunday to Thursday night contest.
[18] By franchise (through the 2024 games) As of the 2024 season, the Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, and Washington Commanders have never played on Christmas Day.