How to Watch NFL Games Online for Free Today, Including Bears vs. Vikings

Today is the final week of the 2018 NFL regular season, and Sunday, Dec. 30, will have plenty of important football games with playoff implications, including two key divisional matchups: Philadelphia Eagles vs. Washington Redskins and Chicago Bears vs. Minnesota Vikings.

Today is the rare day during the NFL regular season when there is no "Sunday Night Football." There is no "Monday Night Football" scheduled for Monday, Dec. 31, either. Instead, the NFL game schedule today is full throughout Sunday afternoon, with all 32 NFL teams in action. The results of games today will finalize the matchups in the NFL playoffs, which start next week with Wild Card games scheduled for Jan. 5 and 6.

What NFL games are on TV today? The answer depends on where you live, and whether or not you have a special NFL package.

All of the NFL games today are being broadcast for free on local CBS and Fox stations around the country. But the games you get to see on your local stations vary based on where you live. Fans generally get to watch their local NFL teams' games, along with one or more other games that broadcasters decide are of interest to viewers.

Here's all the info for how to watch the NFL games today for free — online or on TV — no matter where you live.

What NFL Games Are on TV Today

The NFL game schedule today is chock full of action, with every NFL team set to play on Sunday, Dec. 30:

• Cleveland Browns vs. Baltimore Ravens, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Philadelphia Eagles vs. Washington Redskins, 1 p.m. ET on Fox
• Indianapolis Colts vs. Tennessee Titans, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers, 1 p.m. ET on Fox
• Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Houston Texans, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Oakland Raiders vs. Kansas City Chiefs, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Chicago Bears vs. Minnesota Vikings, 1 p.m. ET on Fox
• New York Jets vs. New England Patriots, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Carolina Panthers vs. New Orleans Saints, 1 p.m. ET on Fox
• Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants, 1 p.m. ET on Fox
• Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, 1 p.m. ET on CBS
• Atlanta Falcons vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1 p.m. ET on Fox
• Los Angeles Chargers vs. Denver Broncos, 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS
• San Francisco 49ers vs. Los Angeles Rams, 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox
• Arizona Cardinals vs. Seattle Seahawks, 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox

You don't need cable TV to watch the NFL games today being broadcast on your local CBS and Fox stations — a lineup that includes the games featuring your local teams. To watch these NFL games today, all you need in most of the country is a digital antenna.

You can buy a decent HDTV antenna for around $25, and once it's hooked up to your TV it will let you tune in local channels from broadcast TV networks like ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. The broadcasts are totally free, in hi-def no less, and you can sometimes tune in multiple local network TV channels. But the broadcast TV channels you can watch with an antenna varies based on where you live and the strength of your antenna.

How to Live Stream NFL Games for Free on a Smartphone

Fans can also watch NFL games today for free online on their phones. Just download the Yahoo Sports app or NFL App, and you'll be able to live stream all of the games airing on your local CBS and Fox stations for free.

Take note, however, that the free live streams are available only on smartphones — the apps can't be used for watching on a larger screen like a laptop or smart TV — and the streams are limited to locally broadcast NFL games. In other words, you cannot use the NFL App or Yahoo Sports app to live stream "out-of-market" games — which are broadcast on CBS and Fox stations in other parts of the country, but not your region.

How to Live Stream NFL Games for Free on TV Today

To watch NFL games online today on any screen you like, consider signing up for a free trial of a streaming TV service that includes local broadcast channels. Fubo TV, Hulu Live, DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue, and YouTube TV include broadcast channels like CBS and Fox in their packages in most of the country.

How much does streaming TV cost? Well, the live streaming services mentioned above generally start at about $40 per month. But all are available to new subscribers for free for about a week during free-trial periods.

If you're unfamiliar with streaming TV services, they are basically the online equivalent of cable TV: They bundle dozens of pay channels (and sometimes network TV too) into one package for a monthly fee. Streaming TV is generally cheaper, with fewer surprise fees and hassles, compared to cable as well.

If you only want to use a streaming TV service to watch NFL games online for free today, you must remember to cancel before the free trial ends. If you don't cancel in time, you'll be automatically charged for the first month.

How to Watch All the NFL Games Today

No matter if you're watching NFL games today on network TV with a digital antenna or cable, or live streaming via an app on your phone, or watching online with a streaming TV provider, you are limited to what NFL games you can watch — based on what your local CBS and Fox stations are broadcasting.

But what if you want to watch out-of-market NFL games? If that's the case, you'll have to subscribe to a special package like DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket. NFL Sunday Ticket prices start at about $300 per season, and for that handsome sum you get to watch (or live stream) out-of-market NFL games every Sunday.

A cheaper option for watching out-of-market NFL games is NFL Game Pass. This package costs $99.99 for the current NFL season, and new subscribers can check it out for free during a seven-day free trial.

With NFL Game Pass, you can watch (or stream) out-of-market games — but the games are only available to subscribers after they are over. In other words, you can't use NFL Game Pass to watch games live. On the other hand, NFL Game Pass lets you watch condensed, commercial-free versions of games. So using the service can save you a bunch of time. It's also much cheaper than NFL Sunday Ticket and comes with a free-trial offer.

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