The NFL schedule is set to be released on Thursday, and as I’ve done the last two years, I’m attempting to put together the sort of schedule the league should be constructing, with the goal of maximizing distribution of the best games and minimizing the likelihood of flexes being desirable but impossible due to CBS and Fox being guaranteed one half of each division rivalry as well as a minimum number of games involving their most desired teams in their respective conferences.
As a review of my philosophy governing this exercise, at least down the stretch of the season, if the three main featured windows (the late doubleheader, Sunday night, and Monday night) don’t contain the three best games of the week, any game that is among the three best but is buried as an undercard should not be set up to be protected. In other words, they can’t be the most desirable game on the singleheader network, and if they’re on the doubleheader network then the main late game can’t be a divisional game where the other matchup is on another network, or a game involving the Cowboys or Chiefs – and such situations should generally be avoided during the main flex period in general, or at least avoiding having games with teams with significantly worse expected records hogging spots while games between teams expected to be .500 or above can’t or won’t be flexed in. Creating a situation where the league would want to pull a flex if teams perform exactly as expected is already something of a failure of schedule construction, as flexible scheduling should only come in if teams don’t perform as expected; creating a situation where the league would want to pull a flex but can’t should be completely unacceptable.
Details on how I put this together, as well as the schedule itself, after the jump.
In the past, I’ve taken the average of each team’s win totals at the three Official Sportsbook Partners of the NFL – Caesars, DraftKings, and FanDuel – as a proxy for how good each team is expected to be. Right now, however, the league doesn’t have any official sportsbook partners; reportedly, Caesars was always going to pull out at the expiration of their contract given the limited return on their advertising investment in the face of the massive scale of the other two, but DraftKings and FanDuel are balking at the prices the NFL’s data provider is asking for. I’d like to think one side or the other is going to blink eventually, given how massive sportsbook advertising is for the NFL and how prominent sportsbooks have become on NFL broadcasts, but the other wrinkle in the matter is the rise of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. I’m more uncomfortable with giving either of them the time of day considering their “we’re not gambling” stance in the face of their actual impact on their users and pushes for increased regulation, but I may end up having to lean on them going forward.
In the end I decided to take the average of DraftKings and FanDuel’s win totals anyway, generally breaking ties using teams’ odds to win the Super Bowl. To avoid a situation like I ran into with DraftKings last year, I took win totals as of April 29th, which turned out to be a smart decision because DraftKings began offering multiple win totals for each team by the end of the week. Here are the win totals I took down for each team, with the first “Tier 1” row signifying that all games between teams in that row fall into Tier 1, as defined below.
| Tier 1 | Rams, Seahawks, Ravens, Bills, Lions, Packers, Chiefs, Eagles |
| 10.5/9.5 | Chargers, 49ers |
| 9.5 | Patriots, Texans, Broncos, Bengals, Bears, Jaguars |
| 9.5/8.5 | Cowboys |
| 8.5 | Buccaneers, Vikings |
| 8.5/7.5 | Colts, Steelers |
Then I sort every game by the perceived quality of the worse team in the game and divide them into tiers of 18 games each, as described here, so if the games were evenly distributed there would be one game from each tier in each week. Ideally, the three main featured windows of the late doubleheader, Sunday nights, and Monday nights would have all their games come from tiers 1-4, with the balance of games from tiers 3 and 4, as well as the bulk of tier 5, being tapped for the Thursday night slate and international, holiday, Saturday, and other special windows. Then tier 6 and the rest of tier 5 would fill out most of the main games in the 1 PM ET window; I don’t go as far as to identify a tier 7 as that would involve teams expected to be below .500 and the point of this exercise isn’t to identify lead 1 PM games anyway. (I did end up identifying a Tier 7 anyway this year, partly because of the sheer number of featured windows outside the traditional ones on Thursdays, Sundays, and Mondays, partly because I had a good seven games involving only teams in the table above left over after filling the first six tiers, and Washington produced just two more games than necessary to fill up the tier.) That’s not always possible, and for various reasons the league and networks don’t prioritize the strictly best games anyway, so I merely try to maximize how much of the best games end up featured, using these principles and procedures:
- Start by “drafting” the 8-9 games I think NBC, ESPN, Fox, CBS, and Amazon would most want. The first four get two games each while Amazon gets the ninth game depending on how easy it would be to give them that game (ie, if it’s a Cowboys game, the game gets held in reserve depending on the Thanksgiving schedule). In the past I leaned on the 506sports Discord for this but that’s gone behind a paywall, so I might have to wing it more going forward.
- Fill out the rest of the late doubleheader windows with the games involving the most attractive teams, making sure to leave aside enough Cowboys games (or games involving other valuable teams) for NBC and ESPN as well as giving CBS their quota of two Cowboys games. Then fill out the Sunday night slate (including Opening Night), then Monday night. Only then should Thanksgiving (as well as any international games that haven’t already leaked) be filled out (though the need to fill them out should be kept in mind throughout the process).
- Generally, whichever division has the highest-ranked third-best team should have their Week 18 games distributed as 2 vs. 3 and 1 vs. 4. Any division in which the top two teams qualify for Tier 2 or higher cannot have those two teams play each other in Week 18. Obviously the league broke this principle with the NFC East last year; I did defer to leaks that suggest that the potential single biggest matchup of this year (based on combined win totals and Super Bowl odds) would fall in Week 18, but only because accommodating other leaks created too many constraints.
- All Tier 1 games, as well as any Tier 2 games being played on the West Coast, must be placed in featured windows. (As it happened, this year I was able to place every Tier 1 and 2 game in a featured window.)
- CBS and Fox are guaranteed one half of each divisional rivalry, so schedule accordingly. However, if a divisional game is designated as a late doubleheader game, the return match must be scheduled for a different featured window on another network.
- Remaining Tier 2 and 3 games not placed in featured windows must be identified as lead 1 PM ET games that are a) prior to the main flex period, b) on the singleheader network in a week where the game is not higher-rated than the lead doubleheader, Sunday night, or Monday night games, or c) on the doubleheader network in a week where the lead game is not a divisional, Cowboys, or Chiefs game, and if in December, is not higher rated than the games in the main featured windows (same as condition b). No more than one game per network per week may be identified this way. Tier 3 games on the West Coast must follow condition b) regardless of whether they follow condition a); if this is not possible, try to place the game in a week with a higher rated 1 PM singleheader game, and if it’s still not possible, place it on the doubleheader network in a week where the lead game is not Tier 1 but is still higher rated, as is the 1 PM game. (Unfortunately, this year there was one game I wasn’t quite able to fill this criterion with.) No more than one Tier 3 West Coast game may be placed in a given week, regardless of network.
- Every team that would fill out the top seven tiers (or has better than +200 odds to make the playoffs) must receive at least one game in a featured window, and every team that made the playoffs last year and has a win total of at least 8 must be given a Sunday night game.
- New this year: any divisional matchup that has one half identified for a featured window not on CBS or Fox must have a week identified for the return matchup, and those return matches, including games identified as lead doubleheaders but not those identified for non-Sunday featured windows, must be distributed as evenly as possible throughout the schedule, or at least the ones that fall in the main flex period do. They do not necessarily need to be identified as lead 1 PM games unless they are a non-West Coast Tier 4 or 5 matchup falling in a week where their network does not already have a lead 1 PM game identified. If a Tier 4/5 divisional matchup involving the Chiefs does not have its CBS half as a lead late doubleheader game, then it must be in Kansas City (in other words, its featured-window half must be a Chiefs road game) so it can be named a lead 1 PM game (this does not come into play this year).
Note that, while I did try to give each network games that I can see each network airing, and I did try to put each game in a time on the calendar that makes sense to me, the purpose of this post is more to list the games than could and should be given featured windows than to specify specific ones, so don’t read too much into the specific slots and networks I assigned each game to. I also freely admit that this schedule isn’t necessarily one the league would have come up with, especially in that it doesn’t share the wealth of primetime games among as many teams as the league would probably prefer. Lastly, I’ve attempted to get this out before any games are officially announced beyond the ones the league has announced themselves over the past few months, but my ability to complete this in a timely fashion was undermined by an accident that made it difficult to eat for several days this week; I’ve incorporated some leaks not already announced by the league, but primarily with regard to special windows (as any games leaked for regular featured windows would reflect the league’s philosophy and not my own) and no leaks at all from today. With all that out of the way, let’s look at the schedule I came up with. Asterisks indicate that the window in question is an official flex scheduling window (not including early flex windows).
Week 1:
- Kickoff Game (Sep 9, NBC): Patriots @ Seahawks
- Melbourne game (Sep 10, Netflix): 49ers v. Rams
- Sun afternoon (Sep 13, CBS): Ravens @ Bengals
- Sun 4:25 (Sep 13, Fox): Bears @ Packers
- SNF (Sep 13, NBC): Cowboys @ Giants
- MNF (Sep 14, ESPN/ABC): Broncos @ Chiefs
Week 2:
- TNF (Sep 17, Amazon): Lions @ Bills
- Sun 4:25 (Sep 20, CBS): Chiefs @ Chargers
- SNF (Sep 20, NBC): Eagles @ Bears
- MNF (Sep 21, ESPN/ABC): Packers @/v. Vikings
Week 3:
- TNF (Sep 24, Amazon): Texans @ Eagles (Yes, I know the Phillies have a home game that night. They’re just gonna have to make it a day game; it was hard enough figuring out where to put these teams’ other featured games, especially with both of them having international games.)
- Sun afternoon (Sep 27, Fox): includes Giants @/v. Washington
- Brazil game, Sun 4:25 (Sep 27, CBS): Ravens v. Cowboys
- SNF (Sep 27, NBC): 49ers @ Chargers
- MNF (Sep 28, ESPN/ABC): Bears @ Seahawks
Week 4:
- TNF (Oct 1, Amazon): Patriots @ Chargers
- London game (Oct 4, NFLN): Colts v. Washington
- Sun 4:05 (Oct 4, CBS): Broncos @ 49ers
- Sun 4:25 (Oct 4, Fox): Packers @/v. Lions
- SNF (Oct 4, NBC): Chiefs @ Seahawks
- MNF (Oct 5, ESPN/ABC): Bills @ Rams
Week 5:
- TNF (Oct 8, Amazon): Seahawks @ Broncos
- London game (Oct 11, NFLN): Eagles v. Jaguars
- Sun 4:25 (Oct 11, Fox): Rams @ 49ers
- SNF (Oct 11, NBC): Bills @ Texans
- MNF (Oct 12, ESPN/ABC): Chiefs @ Bengals
Week 6:
- TNF (Oct 15, Amazon): Falcons @ Browns
- London game (Oct 18, NFLN): Texans v. Jaguars
- Sun afternoon (Oct 18, Fox): includes Washington @ Eagles
- Sun 4:25 (Oct 18, CBS): 49ers @ Chiefs
- SNF (Oct 18, NBC): Chargers @ Ravens
- MNF (Oct 19, ESPN/ABC): Patriots @ Bears
Week 7:
- TNF (Oct 22, Amazon): Buccaneers @ Bengals
- Paris game (Oct 25, NFLN): Steelers v. Saints
- Sun 4:25 (Oct 25, Fox): Seahawks @/v. 49ers
- SNF (Oct 25, NBC): Patriots @ Chiefs
- MNF (Oct 26, ESPN/ABC): Chargers @ Bills
Week 8:
- TNF (Oct 29, Amazon): Broncos @ Patriots
- Sun afternoon (Nov 1, CBS): Bengals @ Texans
- Sun 4:25 (Nov 1, CBS): Ravens @ Bills
- SNF (Nov 1, NBC): Cowboys @ Packers
- MNF (Nov 2, ESPN/ABC): Eagles @ Washington
Week 9:
- TNF (Nov 5, Amazon): 49ers @ Seahawks
- Madrid game (Nov 8, NFLN): Bengals v. Falcons
- Sun afternoon (Nov 8, Fox): Vikings @/v. Packers
- Sun 4:25 (Nov 8, Fox): Chiefs @ Rams
- SNF (Nov 8, NBC): Chargers @ Broncos
- MNF (Nov 9, ESPN/ABC): Ravens @ Texans
Week 10:
- TNF (Nov 12, Amazon): Washington @/v. Giants
- Munich game (Nov 15, Fox): Patriots v. Lions
- Sun afternoon (Nov 15, CBS): Jaguars @ Texans
- Sun 4:25 (Nov 15, Fox): Bills @ Packers
- SNF (Nov 15, NBC): Rams @ Eagles
- MNF (Nov 16, ESPN/ABC): Cowboys @ Seahawks
Week 11:
- TNF (Nov 19, Amazon): Jaguars @/v. Colts
- Sun 4:25 (Nov 22, CBS): Chiefs @ Broncos
- Mexico City game on SNF (Nov 22, NBC): Vikings v. 49ers
- MNF (Nov 23, ESPN): Texans @ Chargers
Week 12:
- Thanksgiving Eve (Nov 25, Netflix): Packers @ Rams
- Thanksgiving (Nov 26, CBS): Bears @ Lions
- Thanksgiving (Nov 26, Fox): Eagles @ Cowboys
- Thanksgiving (Nov 26, NBC): Chiefs @ Bills
- Black Friday (Nov 27, Amazon): Broncos @ Steelers
- Sun afternoon (Nov 29, Fox): includes Falcons @/v. Saints
- Sun 4:25 (Nov 29, CBS): Chargers @ Seahawks
- SNF (Nov 29, NBC)*: Giants @ Texans
- MNF (Nov 30, ESPN)*: Bengals @ Ravens
Week 13:
- TNF (Dec 3, Amazon)*: Lions @ Packers
- Sun 4:25 (Dec 6, Fox): Cowboys @ Rams
- SNF (Dec 6, NBC)*: Steelers @/v. Ravens
- MNF (Dec 7, ESPN)*: Washington @ 49ers
Week 14:
- TNF (Dec 10, Amazon)*: Chargers @ Rams
- Sun 4:25 (Dec 13, CBS): Bears @ Bills
- Sun 4:25 (Dec 13, Fox): Seahawks @ Eagles
- SNF (Dec 13, NBC)*: 49ers @ Cowboys
- MNF (Dec 14, ESPN)*: Jaguars @ Broncos
Week 15:
- TNF (Dec 17, Amazon)*: Raiders @ Chiefs
- Saturday (Dec 19, Fox): Lions @ Bears
- Saturday (Dec 19, CBS): Ravens @/v. Steelers
- Sun 4:25 (Dec 20, CBS): Bills @/v. Patriots
- Sun 4:25 undercard (Dec 20, CBS): Broncos @/v. Chargers
- SNF (Dec 20, NBC)*: Texans @ Packers
- MNF (Dec 21, ESPN/ABC)*: Cowboys @ Eagles
Week 16:
- TNF (Dec 24, Amazon)*: Saints @/v. Falcons (I only realized this was the Christmas Eve game as I was writing it into this post)
- Christmas 1 PM ET (Dec 25, Netflix): Packers @ Patriots
- Christmas 4:30 PM ET (Dec 25, Netflix): Bills @ Broncos
- Christmas 8 PM ET (Dec 25, Fox): Rams @ Seahawks
- 2 Saturday games (Dec 26, NFLN): Flexible selections (includes Buccaneers @ Ravens)
- Sun afternoon (Dec 27, Fox): includes Giants @ Cowboys
- Sun 4:25 (Dec 27, Fox): Eagles @ 49ers
- SNF (Dec 27, NBC)*: Jaguars @ Bears
- MNF (Dec 28, ESPN)*: Colts @ Vikings
Week 17:
- TNF (Dec 31, Amazon)*: Cowboys @ Texans
- Saturday (Jan 2, NBC/Peacock): Rams @ Broncos and Patriots @/v. Bills (order to be determined)
- Sun 4:25 (Jan 3, CBS): Steelers @ Eagles
- SNF (Jan 3, NBC)*: Packers @ Buccaneers
- MNF (Jan 4, ESPN)*: 49ers @ Giants
Week 18 notable games:
- Seahawks @ Rams
- Chargers @/v. Chiefs
- Packers @ Bears
- Lions @/v. Vikings
- Steelers @/v. Bengals
- Washington @/v. Cowboys
- Eagles @/v. Giants
As I did last year, I intend to stream an ersatz schedule release special that spends more time actually presenting the schedule than what NFL Network’s excuse for a special has done in the past (although this year it’s simulcasting ESPN’s special, which has historically been better about this), with the mic on this time but, given my recent history with live streams, no guarantee that the stream will stay up the entire time. You can check that out here tonight at 7:30 PM ET/4:30 PM PT; we’re coming on a half-hour early because multiple teams have signaled that they intend to release their schedules then.