The 1939 NFL season was the 20th regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, NFL president Joseph Carr died, and Carl Storck was named to replace him.

An NFL game was televised for the first time when NBC broadcast the October 22 Philadelphia Eagles at Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn (the Dodgers won 23-14). The experimental broadcast was broadcast only to viewers in New York and Albany; regular broadcasting of NFL games would not begin until 1951.

The season ended when the Green Bay Packers defeated the New York Giants in the NFL Championship Game.

The 1939 NFL draft was held on December 9, 1938, at New York City's New Yorker Hotel. A total of 22 rounds of selections were made, with only the five lowest-finishing teams allowed to select players in rounds 2 and 4 as a means of building parity. Only the five highest-finishing teams were allowed to select players in the final two rounds so that each team had the same number of potential rookies for the coming season.

Thus, a total of 20 players were chosen by each of the 10 teams in the 1939 draft.

With the first pick, the Chicago Cardinals selected center Ki Aldrich from Texas Christian University (TCU). The Chicago Bears picked future Hall of Fame quarterback Sid Luckman of Columbia University with the second overall selection. Winner of the 1938 Heisman Award, quarterback Davey O'Brien of TCU, was selected with the fourth pick of Round 1 by the Philadelphia Eagles.

A total of 55 regular season contests were held by the National Football League during the 1939 season, with each of the league's ten teams playing an 11-game schedule. For the fourth consecutive year, the league set a new record for total attendance of 1,280,332 recorded for the regular season. An additional 32,279 people attended the 1939 league championship playoff game, for a 56-game total of 1,312,611 — an increase of 12.3% over the previous year.

Another 262,678 made their way to one of the nine all-star games held during the year.