Creating the NFL Schedule: How the Football Season Is Set Up

The National Football League (NFL) is the largest and longest-running professional football league in the United States.

The NFL, founded in 1920, proves that football requires strict rules and organization to be considered a professional sport.

The NFL dominates television more than any other sport. It’s one of the few sports in which fans watch almost all games besides one involving their favorite team.

Further, it’s home to some of the world’s top players who showcase their skill sets during matches. 

Here, we have a comprehensive discussion about the creation of the NFL schedule and how the football season is set up. Read on.

Overview

Creating the NFL schedule is a collaborative effort of a team of six NFL executives who must consider the interest of the fans, partners, and other essential factors. 

The group comprises the following individuals;

• Senior vice president of broadcasting Howard Katz
• Broadcasting coordinator Nick Cooney
• Senior director of broadcasting Blake Jones
• Vice president of broadcasting Michael North
• Director of broadcasting Charlotte Carey
• Vice president of broadcasting Onnie Bose

The NFL season is a 272-game schedule lasting 18 weeks where the best teams showcase their talents and best matchups.

The process commences with the league gathering information from clubs regarding events that may conflict with the calendar.

Furthermore, a formula is applied each year to decide the opponents for each team. This ensures that each team has the opportunity to face each of the 31 groups once every four years.

Various cloud-based algorithms generate thousands of possibilities, allowing planners to select the ideal team.

Factors Considered When Setting Up the NFL Schedule

As noted, there are multiple factors that senior executives consider when setting up the NFL. 

Here are the key considerations;

Time Slots

The team strives to schedule the most decisive matches in suitable time frames. 

With primetime matches on Thursdays, Sundays, and Mondays, Sunday’s late window is usually reserved for high-profile fixtures.

Bye Weeks

In the NFL, each team has a non-game week scheduled in or near the middle of the season. The week is known as a bye week and is often between Weeks 6 and 14.

The bye week enables the season to be extended without the players receiving additional compensation. 

Furthermore, it provides teams with a much-needed break for them to heal as well as recover. As you can expect, it helps the participants recharge for the rest of the season.

The league usually tries to restrict the number of times a squad that played the previous week has to face another coming off a bye week.

Travel

Travel is another thing that schedulers put into mind when setting up the NFL. Usually, they avoid allocating a team 2 or more consecutive games away in any season. 

However, there are some instances where teams can close playing up to three matches in a row. They also ensure the teams playing an away match on Monday night don’t play similar NFL playoffs in the coming week.

Logistics

The creators of NFL creators work around already-scheduled events that will take place in NFL stadiums. 

They ensure the playing surface is near perfection and try to eliminate any logistical problems during the actual games. 

Also, they choose stadiums located in areas of low traffic to prevent obstruction. 

Flexibility

In 2006, the NFL implemented flexible scheduling to allow it to shuffle elite late-season contests into time frames that would attract a larger viewership.

Between Weeks 5 and 17, the tournament can move a match slot’s debut on Sunday to NBC’s Sunday Night Football. 

The organization can flex any matchup into Sunday Night Football for the season finale in Week 18.

Other than that, matches can be moved because of the weather and external disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Creation of the NFL Schedule

First off, it’s important to note that the league is composed of 32 teams which are divided into two conferences, namely;

• The National Football Conference-NFC
• The American Football Conference -AFC

At the end of each season, the AFC championship winner plays the NFC championship winner in the Super Bowl.

Each conference has 16 teams split into four groups of four teams each. These are; West, North, East, and South. 

Each team plays seventeen regular-season games, with one week off in between.

The teams on alternate seasons host the following games;

• One preseason match or,
• Nine regular season games or,
• Eight regular preseason matches or
• Two preseason games.

Notably, the NFL will allocate 9 regular-season home matches in 2022.

The following is a breakdown of how each team’s opponents are scheduled;

Six matches against division opponents	Each squad will play two games, one at home and another on the road.
Four matches against rivals from its conference’s one division	Two matches at home and two away Rotates every season among the other three divisions in a group’s conference.
Four matches against teams from the other conference’s one division	Each squad will play two games, one at home and another on the road.Rotates every season among the other three divisions in a group’s conference.
Two matches against teams from the conference’s two remaining divisions	Each squad will play two games, one at home and another on the road.Lineups are based on previous season division rankings, with teams that finished in the same rank in their respective divisions playing off.
One non-conference match against an opponent from a division in which the team is not scheduled to compete. (When the NFL changed from a 16-game season to a 17-game season in 2021, this contest was added to the schedule).	The clash depends on the previous season’s division standings, with clubs that finished in the same place in their respective division facing off.Each season, conferences rotate between home and road games.

Conclusion

Every week, fans across the United States tune in to watch the nationally televised game. Despite the popularity of the NFL, few people know how the matches are set up. Hopefully, our discussion has shed some light on the formation of the NFL.