Unlike the regular season, the exhibition matchups are not based on any rotating or set formula.
The NFL schedules the matchups for all of the exhibition games. Since 2002, individual teams have been allowed to negotiate their own deals to play each other during the preseason. The league allows individual teams to provide input into desired matchups and determines the matchups for any games that were not individually negotiated; however, the league sets all game dates and times. The exhibition season schedule is released in the spring, shortly before the regular season schedule is announced. The NFL has set a loose precedent of determining exhibition matchups:
- No two teams will face each other in the same exhibition season more than once. (See below)
- No NFL team will play a team outside the league. (See below)
- Teams in the same division will not play one another during the exhibition season. (See below)
- The league shies away from teams playing in the exhibition season if they are scheduled to play in the regular season. However, this is not always avoidable.
- Interconference game (AFC vs. NFC) matchups are common and encouraged, since regular season matchups between interconference teams are infrequent (teams play other-conference teams only once every four years during the regular season). These games allow teams to travel to particular markets more frequently than normal, and represent "fresh" matchups.
- Geographically close matchups are preferred, to provide teams with minimal (if possible) exhibition season travel. As such, intrastate rivals are frequent matchups, provided they are not already division foes (Giants/Jets, Ravens/Redskins, Eagles/Steelers, 49ers/Raiders, Bucs/Dolphins/Jaguars, and Chargers/Rams, are all frequent exhibition matchups). The Broncos and Cardinals, the only two teams in the Mountain Time Zone, also play every preseason (though due to Arizona non observance of daylight saving time, Denver is one hour ahead of Arizona during the NFL preseason, which occurs in August).
- Teams with close personal ties often play each other. The Steelers and the Panthers, since 1995, close out their preseason together despite a 450-mile distance between Pittsburgh and Charlotte.[5] There are numerous Pittsburgh-area ties to the Panthers organisation, including former head coach John Fox (a former assistant at Pitt and the Steelers), ex-Steeler linebackers Greg Lloyd and Kevin Greene finishing out their careers at Carolina, and former Steelers safety Donnie Shell having served as the Panthers Director of Player Development since the team's inception. On the flip side, former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher attended N.C. State and currently lives in Raleigh. Former Steelers players Willie Parker and Jeff Reed both attended UNC. This also reflects on the increasing number of Western Pennsylvania natives in relocating to the Carolinas. Similarly, the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions play each other annually in the preseason, since the late Bills owner Ralph Wilson was a native of Detroit and at one point owned a share of the Lions. In addition, both Buffalo and Detroit are the only NFL cities that border Canada, with each city located on opposite sides of Southern Ontario.
- Along with general in-state rivalries, some long-established "Governor's Cups" are played annually.
- After the division realignment in 2002, the NFL factors in former division rivalries which were broken due to teams moving to different divisions. For a five-year period from 2002–2006, the league had the authority to schedule former division rivals for exhibition games (the Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks, who were switched from the NFC East and AFC West, respectively, to the NFC West, are the most notable examples). It was a move intended to recover potentially lost revenue due to the end of a popular annual rivalry game. In some rare cases, the league has scheduled "hot" regular-season matchups if they did not happen to be scheduled to play that season. For instance, Tampa Bay and St. Louis had a popular mini-rivalry from 1999 to 2004. The teams were not scheduled to play one another in 2003, so the league reacted by scheduling a Monday night preseason game for them that season.
