The 2026 NFL season gets its unofficial kickoff next month, and it comes with a fitting storyline. The Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals will meet in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Thursday, Aug. 6, at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, opening the league’s 107th season.
Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. ET, with the game airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock. Arizona has been designated the home team.
Panthers vs. Cardinals Hall of Fame Game ties to Class of 2026
The matchup isn’t random. Former Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and former Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly headline the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026, alongside Drew Brees, Roger Craig and Adam Vinatieri. All five will be honored on the field before kickoff, then receive their Gold Jackets in downtown Canton that Friday. Enshrinement follows two days later, on Saturday, Aug. 8, at the stadium where the Panthers and Cardinals will have just played.
Hall of Fame president and CEO Jim Porter framed it simply in a statement: both franchises wanted to be in Canton for players who meant that much to their organizations.
Fitzgerald and Kuechly aren’t strangers to each other, either. The two crossed paths several times over their careers, including in the 2015 NFC Championship Game, when Carolina beat Arizona on the road en route to a Super Bowl appearance.
What each team brings into the preseason opener
Carolina is coming off an NFC South title, even with a modest 8-9 record, and quarterback Bryce Young took a real step forward last season. Don’t expect to see much of him in Canton, though. Hall of Fame Game rosters typically lean on backups and roster hopefuls rather than projected starters, and Young figures to watch most of this one from the sideline.
Arizona arrives with a new voice in charge. Mike LaFleur takes over as head coach this offseason, the younger brother of Packers coach Matt LaFleur, and will be running his first game as an NFL head coach in front of a Canton crowd. The Cardinals’ offensive identity still runs through tight end Trey McBride, who caught 126 passes in 2025 to set the NFL’s single-season record at the position and earned first-team All-Pro honors for it. Safety Budda Baker, an eight-time Pro Bowler, anchors the defense.
The two teams already met once this past season. Arizona built a 27-3 lead in Week 2 of 2025 at State Farm Stadium and held off a late Carolina rally to win 27-22.
“Both of these teams are eager to come to Canton to open their season and to celebrate members of the Class of 2026 who meant so much to their organizations.”
— Jim Porter, Pro Football Hall of Fame president and CEO
History in Canton for both franchises
This is Carolina’s first trip back to the Hall of Fame Game since the franchise’s very first game in 1995, when the expansion Panthers beat a fellow first-year team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, 20-14, by stopping Jacksonville at the 3-yard line in the closing seconds.
Arizona has a longer history with the event. The franchise, then based in St. Louis, played in the first-ever Hall of Fame Game back in 1962, a 21-21 tie with the New York Giants — one of only two ties in the game’s history. Counting this year, the Cardinals will have made six trips to Canton, going 1-3-1 in the previous five.
Because both teams are hosting the Hall of Fame Game, they’ll each play four preseason games instead of the usual three, and both report to training camp earlier than the rest of the league to get ready for it.
Tickets and how to watch
Tickets remain available through the Hall of Fame’s official site, with packages that include on-field photo opportunities after the game and access to greet returning Hall of Famers during Enshrinement weekend. Fans looking to catch the action from home can find it on NBC or stream it on Peacock.
For the league itself, the game carries a bit of extra weight beyond preseason football. It’s the first time two NFL teams have taken the field together since the Super Bowl, closing out a six-month gap without games.
