LivnaLieTimay

"ESPN will kick off the new era of Monday Night Football with a doubleheader, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced Monday.

Washington will host Minnesota in the opener (Sept. 11, 7 p.m. ET), followed by San Diego at Oakland (10:15 p.m. ET). The Vikings-Redskins game will features new Minnesota coach Brad Childress against a team which added a slew of free agents to an already talented 2005 playoff roster. The second game is highlighted by a pair of debuts -- Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers and Raiders head coach Art Shell.

Also, the Manning brothers will play each other for the first time to open NBC's Sunday Night football schedule. That game is Sept. 10 (8:15 p.m. ET) at the Meadowlands. According to the NFL, it will be the first time in league history that brothers will start at quarterback against each other.

The season opener will be Sept. 7, with defending Super Bowl champ Pittsburgh hosting Miami. NBC will televise the game, which will be the Dolphins debut for quarterback Daunte Culpepper, if he's healthy enough to start the season. That game is set for 8:30 p.m. ET.

Other schedule highlights announced Monday:

• Terrell Owens will make his Dallas debut in the first late Sunday afternoon telecast of the year (FOX) when the Cowboys visit Jacksonville.

• The first-ever tripleheader on Thanksgiving. The Dolphins will visit the Lions in the early game (CBS), followed by the Buccaneers at the Cowboys (FOX) and capped off by the Broncos at the Chiefs (NFL Network).

The Chiefs used to host a Thanksgiving Day game in the AFL days and have long campaigned to host one in the NFL.

"I've thought all those games should be rotated," Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt said Monday. "But it's a plus for us to have the first one at night.

"We have a history in them. We always hosted them before the merger, and we've wanted to do it again."

The Broncos-Chiefs match will be the first live, in-season game on NFL Network, which will show eight prime-time games from Thanksgiving through the end of the season. Those games will be on either Thursday or Saturday nights.

"It ought to bring a great rating," Hunt said. "People will be worn out from all of their Thanksgiving Day activities, so they can sit down and enjoy the game."

The rest of the 2006 schedule will be announced in April when it is finalized."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2386175

Weren't we promised some special nationally televised game? I'm not seeing it, I better see something in April or else I'll be dissapointed in Tags. Granted the way we played we don't deserve a national game but correct me if I'm wrong, didn't he say he wanted to showcase us on some national games to increase our popularity.