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Anybody chronically online who knows (foot)ball knows that the way the NFL handles its schedule release is roundabout AF. Yes, they drag that shit out like an award show. They don't just give you the schedule. They make the NCAA tournament selection show look like a memo. There's the day when your team's home & road opponents are announced. There's an announcement of the day they're announcing the schedule day, and of course, schedule release day. ESPN/NFL Network regularly turns it into two hours of programming.
Today is the cousin of the confirmation of the schedule release day since I'm pretty sure that this news was already out, but Adam Schefter (pee boy) confirmed the confirmation that the 2023 NFL Schedule drops on Thursday.
But that wasn't the only news that I'm relaying to you 3+ hours later; there were some tweaks to how the NFL schedule works this year.
Since the entire tweet doesn't show while embedded because of the new Twitter blue disaster.
Let's start with the good and work our way to the bad. Actually, this isn't even really good, it's more so just a thing. I don't really care about "all games being free agents." Yes, it was cool how AFC and CBS were intertwined, as were NFC and FOX, but the world is not black and white. It's grey AF. Most things in life are on a spectrum; idc if the game is on CBS, FOX, Hulu, Lifetime, AMC, or the defunct SpikeTV. As long as the Pats are on TV/a streaming service that I already have, I'm cool.
Now for the bad.
I think the premise of Black Friday games fucking stinks. Look, I love football (and I will say that a lot for the rest of this blog). It's legitimately one of my favorite parts of being alive. The game probably ruined my brain, and the likelihood of me having CTE (even from just four years of Rhode Island High School Football) is far above 0%, but if I restarted life tomorrow...I'd probably do it all again. If anything, I would've trained harder so I could've been better and played longer because I love football and miss being part of a team.
One of the best parts of the NFL is how most games are on Sunday. This is lame af, but the older I get, the less I care about sports. The more time you make me dedicate to it, the more likely something else will come up. I'm single and childless, so I can devote the entire day to football, but not everybody is so lucky (plus, I'm one good conversation from potentially both of those things changing). With the other three major sports in this country, your team is playing every few nights, if not every night, and of course, other teams fill in the other days. It's just a fucking lot. This will be weird for fantasy with the waiver wire too. I just don't fuck with it, okay! I don't watch every MNF game. If it's a shitty matchup or doesn't have fantasy implications, there's a chance I'm watching/doing something else. The same goes for Thursday Night Football (which we'll get to soon). Plus, not everybody gets Black Friday off. You're fucking over those fans who'll miss out cause they have a shitty job that doesn't treat them like a person/a critical position where you cannot close like anything in a hospital or a Wal-Mart cashier. It just feels like overkill and a money grab. Not to get on my "capitalism will eventually lead to the collapse of society" soapbox, but this is all about making more money for the comically rich NFL. Like how they stretch out the schedule, this gives the NFL another prime-time matchup (s) to sell ads. I love football, but Thanksgiving Weekend already has a lot going on. Friday is usually a chill day. I'm sure come November, if the matchup is good or I have fantasy implications, I'll be glad there's a game, but it's almost like a chore now. Can't we just have that Friday? You're monopolizing my life, NFL! I feel for the fans who are negatively impacted by this and all the players who will have another game on short rest. It's fucked. Perfect transition to how teams can now have multiple Thursday night games. Last year, the Pats played on Thursday twice because of Thanksgiving, and it sort of worked out cause the games were on back-to-back weeks, but this is fucked. It's a significant competitive disadvantage for the teams that have to play more games on short rest. So much for player safety! I watch TNF, but wish it didn't exist. Similarly to my take on Black Friday games, I'll obvi end up watching, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. I love the NFL (the product, not all the shady scuzzy shit behind the scenes), but in a way, these changes make it tougher to be a fan by making you dedicate more time to the NFL. Thursday night games usually suck and are proven to be a more significant risk for the players...so fuck it, let's give teams more! I'll end on a quick positive note because I need to get to the gym but I wanted to get a blog out on Dozah Day....I like only guaranteeing some teams a prime-time game. It will likely incentivize owners to improve their teams so they don't risk becoming irrelevant. That's good for the league as a whole...light a little fire under their ass. Like it's disgusting what's going on in baseball rn with tanking. Poor Oakland. Plus, I want the best matchups. It blows when a December MNF game ends up being a battle of sub-5-win teams (and that is why I usually don't watch). Sure, people get annoyed when it feels like the same four teams are playing every prime-time game, but the best matchups should be the ones getting the most eyeballs. We don't need the whole country watching Texans vs. Jaguars (although the Jags might actually be good now..we'll see if they'll continue to grow from their run last year).
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