In six simple words, NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning Mike North inadvertently pulled back a pretty significant curtain when it comes to the competitive integrity of professional football.
They owe us one.
Before North uttered that line in reference to the Jets’ 2024 schedule, few had focused on the question of whether the NFL might be abusing the incredible power it has to make things easier or harder for a given team in depending on when your games are played. juice.
The Jets, who haven’t been to the playoffs since 2010, haven’t done anything to win high-profile games. But they got a lot of them last year after trading for Aaron Rodgers. This year, the Jets got seven standalone games in the first 11 weeks because, as North said, “they owe us one.”
So will the Jets have a more challenging game setup, with three in 10 days to start the season, because they failed to deliver in 2023? That makes no sense and goes against the league’s overall approach of competitive balance from year to year.
“Good” teams should have more complicated schedules. “Bad” teams should play most of their games on Sunday afternoons. However, as television money has increased, the league has decided to choose teams based not on whether they have earned the burden of playing so many games with less rest and/or greater scrutiny.
The Chiefs have obviously earned their hopscotch schedule. And they have thrived on that obligation in the past.
“You’ve been our bell cow for a while, right?” North recently told Adam Schefter. “They’re kind of used to hauling our water for some of these unique opportunities here.”
Still, in that same interview, North also admitted that (contrary to those who think everything is rigged for the Chiefs), the league gave the two-time defending champions a very difficult task.
“We gave the Chiefs maybe the toughest schedule in the league,” North said. “I suspect they’ll be there come playoff time.”
The Chiefs probably will, but it won’t be easy. It won’t be easy for the Jets either, for reasons unrelated to their recent accomplishments on the field.
The broader point, which I didn’t realize until North said “they owe us one,” is that the league has MASSIVE influence over the competitive integrity of a season based on how games are scheduled. They can (and do) hold some teams to a strict schedule, and they know it.
There should be a formula based on the teams’ performance the previous year. The bottom four teams should face the biggest burdens when it comes to limited rest due to primetime bingo or rest imbalances that arise when facing teams coming off bye weeks. Non-playoff teams should play most of their games at 1:00 pm ET (or 4:05 pm ET) on Sundays.
Instead, the league does what it wants, without barriers. While the ostensible goal is to create the most compelling list of indie games, many other biases and agendas can appear. Last year, for example, it seemed that teams that dared to oppose the flexible Thursday night option were more likely to end up with multiple Sunday-Thursday games.
Here’s the bigger picture, for anyone willing to bet on win totals, division titles or the Super Bowl champion: Wait.
Specifically, wait until the schedule is released before placing bets like that. Placing bets before then makes those bets even more complicated than they already are.
In recent years, some have marveled at the attention paid to the schedule announcement, as it simply adds the “when” to the “who” and “where” of the 272-game slate. The “when,” however, means everything. Especially since the process is becoming less and less random and structured and more and more strategic and deliberate.
Keynote USA
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