After months of waiting through a long offseason, the National Football League's new season is looming on the horizon at the turn of the calendars to the month of August. It's then that the league's annual Hall of Fame game takes place and brings about the familiar sounds and sights of live action on the gridiron once again.
The tradition of the NFL's annual Hall of Fame game goes all the way back to 1962, a long-standing starting gun to the marathon race known as the grueling regular season. The participating teams are typically announced around the same time as the league's incoming Hall of Fame inductees and is held on the same weekend.
Given that the league's Hall of Fame ceremonies are held on the weekend before the opening of the preseason calendar, the game adds one more exhibition to the total of preseason games that are typically played. In this year's instance with the Chicago Bears playing the Houston Texans, that means both of those franchises will play four contests before the regular season begins instead of three.
This year's exhibition should be a tremendous opening to the NFL's preseason given the excitement surrounding both young teams. The Bears have been remade in Ryan Poles' image and have first-overall pick Caleb Williams at the helm with just about the juiciest group of wideouts any rookie quarterback can imagine—from Rome Odunze to D.J. Moore to Keenan Allen.
As for the Texans, they're a sleeper contender who proved last year they were capable of big things. A bright young roster led by C.J. Stroud is going to want to build on last year's unexpected success. The defense led by second-year anchor Will Anderson will be stout after another offseason of tooling and growth.
Here's all the information you'll need to catch the start of the NFL's preseason.
What you neeed to know about the NFL Hall of Fame Game
Date: Thursday, August 1
Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
Where: Canton, Ohio
Teams: Houston Texans vs. Chicago Bears
Network: ESPN/ABC