When your passion for football, and particularly the NFL, gets to a point where you cannot function normally without a daily dose of the aggressive play during the 17-week regular season, you cannot simply rely on cable TV to fill that need.
Serious football fans make a point of knowing where and how to get NFL football live streaming online. If you have cut your cable cord for some reason, it is especially important for you to know how to watch live NFL football games online.
Even without a cable TV subscription, a satellite dish, or a nearby sports bar, there are still many NFL live games that will be available for streaming with nothing but a PC or web connected device and a reliable internet connection. The following are some ways for you to watch live NFL games online for free with no download requirement:
NFL Games on CBS and NBC
If you intend to stream NFL playoffs games for free, then NBC and CBS are good options for you. The games available on the NBC sports website should be different from those offered on CBS. With NBC football online, you can watch live games from your computer, or via Live Extra apps for android and iOS.
CBS is considered the TV home of the American Football Conference (AFC). You can watch all four of AFC’s playoff games on CBSSports.com. This site has a convenient streaming hub, which allows fans to view stats, game highlights, and tweets, as they view each showdown.
Besides the free online NFL streams available on the CBS and NFL networks, football fans can also watch their favorite teams on ESPN network.
Through your cable subscription
If you already have a cable subscription, you can watch NFL football online more liberally. Your subscription entitles you to Monday night football streaming live for free, as well as the NFL RedZone live stream for free all day Sunday, though the RedZone channel is only available online to customers subscribed to specific cable TV providers.
NBC Sports Extra
Every Sunday night during the NFL regular season, football fans can watch live for free one NFL game every week – the marquee live – at NBC Sports Extra.
This means that you can watch one of the great match-ups of the weekend every Sunday at 2000 hours, Eastern Time, courtesy of NBC sports. This free stream allows you to choose from a multitude of camera angles; a feature that is only available to online users, but not TV viewers.
The live stream is available in HD, though the “Football Night in America” scores and the highlights pre-game show are not available. In addition, the free Sunday Night Football Webcast cannot be viewed from your tablet or smartphone, unless you are subscribed to Verizon cellular services. Verizon has exclusive rights to stream the NFL football games on mobile devices, so only users who have installed their $5 app can watch live streams of NFL on their mobile devices.
The NFL RedZone live stream
As from the 2013 regular NFL season, football fans were able to stream live football online, courtesy of the NFL RedZone Channel. Football enthusiasts can now enjoy seven hours of continuous, commercial-free live football. This non-stop coverage of live games will allow you to see every touchdown in all the highly intriguing plays of Sunday afternoon games.
Fans with an active cable TV subscription can watch the NFL RedZone live stream for free online via CableVision, COX, Verizon FIOS, or AT&TUVerse. An extra benefit of subscribing to cable service carriers is the 24-hour access to the NFL network stream, which includes all-day long NFL RedZone broadcast on Sundays.
NFL Games and Replays at WatchESPN
Like in previous years, you can watch Monday night football games live on WatchESPN. This site allows football fans to watch ESPN online free-of-charge, though this option is only available for users with a cable subscription. Unlike the NFL RedZone live stream, which is limited to several cable service providers, WatchESPN is offered to subscribers of just about every cable service carrier.
While the stream is available in HD, you will not be able to stream Monday Night football on your smartphone or tablet, unless you are using Verizon as your cellular service carrier. If you have Verizon’s app, you can enjoy the exclusive coverage of NFL games, live, on your smartphone.
NFL Sunday Ticket on DIRECTV
Direct TV Sunday ticket offers out-of-market games that are not televised nationally, as well as pregame shows and statistic tracking. This is a subscription service that requires $340, and an additional $50 for the To-Go feature, which allows you to stream live games on your pc or mobile device.
NFL Live stream on your Android or iOS device
As mentioned earlier, Verizon has exclusive rights to stream live NFL games on Android and iOS mobile devices. As a Verizon subscriber, you can watch online three live football games every weekend, in addition to the NFL Thursday night football live stream for free, Monday Night Football live, and Sunday Night football live. Verizon mobile users can also watch the Sunday RedZone live stream on their smartphones for free.
However, mobile users must purchase the $5 NFL mobile app in order to access the NFL live streams. While Verizon allows its clients to watch RedZone live streams on their mobile devices, individual Sunday afternoon games are still not available on tablets and smartphones.
NFL draft live stream
The NFL draft live stream has become an annual event every spring. Those fans who cannot watch the televised games can watch all 32 picks on the NFL official website. It can be a bit tough for fans to get in front of a TV on Thursday evenings, so a Thursday night football live stream for free online can be a great alternative.
NFL.com will offer live coverage of the full event, and provide football fans with the means to interact freely during the event via the live chat feature on their website. The live stream is also available on NFL mobile offered Verizon, which features portions of the NFL Network Programming.
One shortcoming with this streaming option is that their emphasis is placed solely on the promising or top talent in the draft, ignoring late-round prospects. This should not be a bother for casual fans, but it can be quite inconveniencing for fans who want to have the same level of analysis on later picks.
To address this, users can use the Bleacher Report stream, which usually features fan reactions and guests, like the current NFL players. Die-hard fans can get Team Stream – the android and iOS app by Bleacher Report, in order to get all information on every single pick.