Anyone wonder how NFL Schedules are made?

[RecoveringCowboy]

We all know 14 of the 16 games for the season after this upcoming one. At the end of the season, we know the other 2 games. Play divisional rivals twice, everybody in an AFC division once every 3 years, everybody in an NFC division every 4 years. For non-divisional games, I guess if it was a road game, then it's a home game next time and vice versa. There are a few quirks out there too. Detroit and Dallas always have a home Thanksgiving game - the Jets and Giants can't play home the same day. No more than 2 consecutive home or road games. I'm sure a computer can crunch out a schedule for those givens.

I'm guessing the owners get a prototype and negotiate the tweaks. Nobody is going to be completely happy with their schedule.

 

[Gronk]

the official version:

Creating the NFL Schedule | NFL Football Operations

 

[FourierSeries]

They use a linear programming approach, taking into consideration multitude of constraints (some of which you've touched upon), to maximize value for their TV partners.

 

[Wordsmyth]

"I'll take 'Alchemy' for $500, Alex!"

 

[Tony2046]

They use a linear programming approach, taking into consideration multitude of constraints (some of which you've touched upon), to maximize value for their TV partners.

They need to add another constraint which would be only scheduling a TNF game after a Bye week. Extend the season and add an additional bye week or two. If they want the quality of play to improve on TNF give the team a chance to prepare and rest.

A bye week should not be scheduled prior to week 6 unless they allow 2 bye weeks per team.

Travel to London prior to a bye week or at least after a TNF game.

IMO.

 

[Gronk]

They need to add another constraint which would be only scheduling a TNF game after a Bye week. Extend the season and add an additional bye week or two. If they want the quality of play to improve on TNF give the team a chance to prepare and rest.

A bye week should not be scheduled prior to week 6 unless they allow 2 bye weeks per team.

Travel to London prior to a bye week or at least after a TNF game.

IMO.

If they cared about quality of the games (including not just gameplay but also health and player safety) over the TV package they would have just never done full-season TNF.

You couldn't have TNF without bye weeks starting, really at Week 1 (if everyone played Week 1 the only teams eligible to play Week 2's TNF game would be...the same teams from Week 1). I'm sure there's some schedule permutation that would accommodate your suggestions, but my guess it would include at least 3 bye weeks which would need to be applied in an even more unbalanced fashion (and create even more teams playing each other coming off wildly differing amounts of time off). None of that is worth it just to give TNF a false integrity. I think they already have pretty strict requirements around the London travel situation, I could be wrong though.

Leaving TNF out of it I think they could stand to pack all the bye weeks more tightly (8 teams off per) around like weeks 7-10 or 8-11 while still providing a reasonable slate of weekly games for TV. I'm sure that would enrage the fantasy football sector though, which sounds ridiculous but the NFL and TV networks pimp that as hard as anyone.

 

[Tony2046]

If they cared about quality of the games (including not just gameplay but also health and player safety) over the TV package they would have just never done full-season TNF.

You couldn't have TNF without bye weeks starting, really at Week 1 (if everyone played Week 1 the only teams eligible to play Week 2's TNF game would be...the same teams from Week 1). I'm sure there's some schedule permutation that would accommodate your suggestions, but my guess it would include at least 3 bye weeks which would need to be applied in an even more unbalanced fashion (and create even more teams playing each other coming off wildly differing amounts of time off). None of that is worth it just to give TNF a false integrity. I think they already have pretty strict requirements around the London travel situation, I could be wrong though.

Leaving TNF out of it I think they could stand to pack all the bye weeks more tightly (8 teams off per) around like weeks 7-10 or 8-11 while still providing a reasonable slate of weekly games for TV. I'm sure that would enrage the fantasy football sector though, which sounds ridiculous but the NFL and TV networks pimp that as hard as anyone.

Good points.

It would have to be at least 2 bye weeks one standard and one pre TNF game. 3 bye weeks would be great to balance out the "differing" amount of times off and more importantly for teams to rest their players throughout the season. (Having two teams on bye weeks at the beginning of the season would feel awkward but still doable. IMO)

Both teams that are scheduled to play a TNF game would get a bye week which would give both teams relatively the same amount of rest prior to the game, save one team coming off of a MNF which is minimal.

Would it be difficult to extend the season 2 additional weeks? I don't know what that would entail. Maybe cut preseason to 3 games and add a week at the end of the season.

Would TV revenue increase with an additional 2 weeks of NFL football? I imagine it would.

Why would the Fantasy Football world complain? (I'm not a FF guy so I have no idea why)

 

[Gronk]

Good points.

It would have to be at least 2 bye weeks one standard and one pre TNF game. 3 bye weeks would be great to balance out the "differing" amount of times off and more importantly for teams to rest their players throughout the season. (Having two teams on bye weeks at the beginning of the season would feel awkward but still doable. IMO)

Both teams that are scheduled to play a TNF game would get a bye week which would give both teams relatively the same amount of rest prior to the game, save one team coming off of a MNF which is minimal.

Would it be difficult to extend the season 2 additional weeks? I don't know what that would entail. Maybe cut preseason to 3 games and add a week at the end of the season.

Would TV revenue increase with an additional 2 weeks of NFL football? I imagine it would.

Why would the Fantasy Football world complain? (I'm not a FF guy so I have no idea why)

I'm sure there's reasons that extending the season would be complicated for some of the venues, existing TV arrangements, etc. Nothing that couldn't be figured out, of course.

As a comparison I'd liken the idea of a reconfiguring the schedule to accommodate Thursday games to MLB going to having interleague play all the time and moving teams around leagues. Maybe it just means I'm getting old, but it's an dumb, heavy-handed overthink of a fix to a problem that never had to exist and has made each sport worse purely as a sporting product.

I think it's a great idea to add a 2nd bye week - if that meant moving opening weekend to Labor Day weekend, pushing the Super Bowl back, or eliminating the 2-week Super Bowl break then so be it. But as much as it's fun to hate on the NFL the reason they arrived at the schedule setup they're at is because it's actually pretty efficient. They did try a 2-bye thing in 1993 and they had some wonky schedules (1st bye after 3rd game, 2nd bye after 6th game for some teams...is that really what we're advocating?) and tv lineups that didn't seem to work. Now that TNF is a thing that gets bid on by multiple outlets it's never going away and all things considered I think they do the best they can in screwing all teams a relatively equal amount. In sum I would be happy if they added the 2nd bye in some fashion because I think it's good for the players, but I realize that in doing so there would just be a whole new set of scheduling complaints, snafus, new "FLEX GAME" options late-season, or other questions marks.

FF - I guess my point would matter less to the so-called weekly leagues but for year-long leagues I believe it would be problematic to have 8 teams off in each of 4 consecutive weeks per my proposal of packing the bye weeks together rather than the current setup. I don't actually play either, but it is a legitimate sector of interest for the league.