With NFL anticipated to develop regular-season schedule to 17 video games this week, a take a look at seemingly dates

The NFL is about to implement a 17-game schedule this week, the primary time the league will develop the schedule since 1978 when video games have been elevated from 14 video games to 16 video games, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The league’s house owners will meet this week and are anticipated to ratify the schedule enlargement, as has been anticipated for a number of months.

This might be the second important change to the NFL schedule in as a few years, as 2020 resulted in an enlargement of the postseason from 12 to 14 groups — which did not add an additional week to the postseason regardless of including two extra video games. The present NFL collective bargaining settlement states the house owners can add a seventeenth recreation to the regular-season schedule as quickly because the 2021 season, however that may be pushed again to later years. 

As for the 2021 common season schedule — here is what to anticipate, per Warren Sharp of Sharp Soccer Evaluation:

• No further bye week (17 video games on 18 weekends)
• Week 1 (first common season Sunday): Sept. 12, 2021 (week after Labor Day weekend)
• Week 18 (last common season Sunday): Jan. 9, 2022
• Tremendous Bowl Sunday: Feb. 13, 2022 (week earlier than President’s Day weekend)
• Wild Card Weekend can have two video games on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022; three video games on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022; and one recreation on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. 

The 17-game season can also be tied to the completion of the league’s new tv contracts, which have been introduced this month. The brand new tv offers will not begin till 2023, however the league is anticipated to change the present offers for enlargement. 

NFL house owners voted in December on a “scheduling method” for a 17-game season. The plans for the seventeenth recreation are anticipated to be an “interconference matchup based mostly on divisional standings” from the earlier marketing campaign, and “on a rotating divisional foundation.” An instance of this method can be the first-place group from the NFC East dealing with the first-place group from the AFC East and the opposite division groups — based mostly on the place they completed in 2020 — would comply with go well with. 

The extra recreation will not alter the present scheduling method; the seventeenth recreation shall be a slight tweak. The preseason shall be lowered in consequence, with the anticipated variety of preseason video games to be three.  A two-game preseason can also be reportedly in play, however that will alter the NFL’s 20-game method of getting 10 house and 10 highway video games per group (common season and preseason). If the NFL retains the 20-game method, 16 groups can have 10 house video games (8 common season and two preseason), whereas the opposite 16 can even have 10 — however in a special format (9 common season and one preseason). This might rotate every season. 

The 2021 NFL schedule is anticipated to be introduced in Might. For the primary time since 1946, the NFL would have an odd variety of video games in a non-strike season.