The NFL continued to make announcements about their international games lineup this week, with the league announcing that the Dallas Cowboys would be the host team for the first game to be played in Rio de Janeiro. It will be the first time the Cowboys have played overseas since 2014.
The date and opponent haven’t been released, but to date, the latest international game was played in Mexico City on November 21, 2016. So it’s almost guaranteed the game will take place between September and mid-November.
The game will be played at Maracanã Stadium.
As for the opponent, it’s incredibly rare for the NFL to schedule division opponents to play internationally (although it has happened a few times). If that pattern holds, the list of possible opponents would include: the Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Francisco 49ers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Tennessee Titans.
With the Jaguars already committed to playing in London every year, we doubt they would be sent to Brazil. As for the rest, the Titans and Ravens last played abroad in 2023, while the Cardinals, Niners, and Bucs last did in 2022. With Jerry Jones probably pitching a fit about giving up the revenue from a home game, we think it’s a pretty good bet that the “winner” of this assignment ends up being the team with the weakest profile and least recent international assignment, which is probably the Bucs or Cardinals. (We think Jerry would want to keep that Niners game on the home schedule, so we’re ruling that one out).
So that’s our guess: it will be the Bucs or Cardinals, and we’d give the edge to the Bucs based on nothing other than them having the closest proximity to Brazil. But anything goes with these assignments, so we’ll all just have to wait and see when the schedule is finalized in May.
Next steps
Until a date is announced, there’s nothing more to do regarding travel planning. At this point, the best next step for Cowboys fans – and fans of the potential opponents – is to start thinking about whether this is a trip you might want to make.
But if you are even casually interested, you can sign up for notices about the event and ticketing details at the NFL’s site by clicking here.
