Late April means one thing in the NFL:
The official 2012 season schedule release.
...OK, it means two things.
No, we won't be talking about the draft here. Posts this week are specifically written to answer any questions you might have about not only how the National Football League schedules games, but also what determines the days and times the games are played. In particular, how the dates and times are determined is a very often overlooked area of sports.
The NFL, composed of 32 teams in two conferences of four equal divisions each, begins by gathering a committee to put together individual teams' opponents for the season. Each team plays 16 games over 17 weeks, one game a week and one week off, eight home games, eight road games.
-Every team plays the other three teams in its division twice, once at home and once on the road (6 games).
-In addition, teams from one division will play all the teams from two other divisions, one from their own conference and one from the other conference (4+4=8 games). These games are also split evenly into home and road games.
-A team's final two games are determined by the last season's final division standings by conference, where the teams they will play are the two teams who finished with the same ranking in their respective division, in the same conference (not from the division the team is set to play), one at home and one on the road. This makes a team's strength of schedule a little more "fair".
The NFL then rotates each year which divisions will match up against each other. In this way, every team will play each other no longer than every four years. The NFL also takes no consideration into account where past meetings have been played between two teams in different divisions. The only exception is usually in the case of keeping East Coast teams from traveling a lot.
All of that... was the easy part. Next come the actual dates and times, determined by broadcasters with TV rights and the NFL, of course. Trust me, it gets complicated, and you'll see just how complicated in part II, coming tomorrow. In fact, the West Coast teams tend to be the ones who do the most complicating.
Any questions? Go ahead and comment below.
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