![]() ![]() ![]() The league traditionally has made Thursday night the receptacle for bad teams once a year to play in prime time. I would not expect every team to have a Thursday night game on Amazon this year.Baltimore may not be in prime time as much as the Jets, but the Ravens should expect multiple primetime games as well. Expect the Jets to have five or six primetime games and at least four or five doubleheader games. ![]() Each team can be scheduled for six primetime regular-season games, with the league option of flexing that team into a seventh, and then regardless of primetime appearances, any team can be scheduled on Sunday night in week 18. I’d previously reported the Jets, who had one primetime game last year without Rodgers, would likely have 11 or 12 primetime/Sunday doubleheader games this year with Rodgers. The resolution of the Aaron Rodgers and Lamar Jackson situations allows the NFL to move forward with the Jets to be a heavy primetime team and the Ravens to be more attractive for night games too.ET window, which is not nearly as conducive to big ratings as are Sunday late-afternoon or primetime games. You might ask, Wouldn’t Kansas City want to protect red-hot home games against Buffalo, Cincinnati and Philadelphia from moving to Germany? The league would almost certainly not schedule those games for overseas, because Germany games are played in the 9:30 a.m. As for 2024, it’s hard to imagine Carolina would not try to keep Patrick Mahomes’ only currently scheduled game in Charlotte for the next eight years at Bank of America Stadium. I’m told Kansas City requested that the Chicago game not be played overseas. First: When a team gives up one of its home games to play overseas, it has the option of requesting to the league one home game on its schedule the team does not want moved. I’ve been told there’s some doubt on both of those reports. Bild reported Carolina’s 2024 foe would be Kansas City. The German newspaper Bild reported KC would play Chicago in the Germany game, and that KC would play again in Germany in 2024 when Carolina is due to host a game there. Kansas City is playing a November game in Frankfurt this year that’s a fact. Not so fast on the reports of Kansas City dominating the Germany games in 20.I’m told as of the weekend the NFL was still in search of options on the 272-game regular season slate, with a series of computers continuing to spit out alternatives. The schedule crew is slated to meet with commissioner Roger Goodell this afternoon in New York, at which time more clarity on the tentpole games is expected. The mega-games are usually solid by early May. The 2023 mega-games-opening Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights, Thanksgiving Day, the new Black Friday tilt, the Sunday night game on Christmas Eve and the Monday tripleheader on Christmas-are not set in stone yet. It’s still likely to be done in time for release Thursday at 8 p.m., but I was told over the weekend it may not be finished in time. The release of the schedule, which the NFL had hoped to have for a primetime show Thursday night, may be delayed.The last NFL TV event before training camps open in late July, the release of the schedule, is nigh. No matter the news off the field, though, the game looks unassailable, at least to its fans, 11 weeks before the start of training camps and the new season. I’ve heard the league is concerned about the investigation, as it should be, and what the AGs could learn. This follows a New York Times investigation with disturbing allegations, particularly by one former NFL Network VP who said the league never addressed her claims of “pervasive sexism in the workplace,” per the Times. On Thursday, attorneys general in New York and California opened a joint investigation into a hostile work environment and discrimination against female NFL employees. The nightmare of Dan Snyder’s ownership moving toward a sale in Washington might drag on his divorce with the league continues to be exceedingly ugly. There are scars, and potentially big ones. A short quarterback, Bryce Young, perhaps forever changing how we look at short quarterbacks by being the first pick in the draft. Lamar Jackson and the Ravens making a five-year peace treaty. Aaron Rodgers, caped crusader, flying in to save the Jets-at great, great cost. The Super Bowl, with the third-biggest audience in TV history. A 38-35 Super Bowl with the re-coronation of Patrick Mahomes and the emergence of a new 24-year-old superstar, Jalen Hurts. Really, a (mostly) tremendous start to 2023 for a league that manufactures news cycles, even in the off-season. For the NFL, it’s been three months full of news. ![]()
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