NFL schedule release 2017: Thursday Night Football games

The 2017 NFL Schedule is about to drop and we want to know who’s donning those Color Rush unis and when.

One of the clearest signs that the NFL season is just around the corner will happen on Thursday night at 8 p.m. EST on ESPN: The release of the 2017 schedule!

Love them or hate them, Thursday Night Football games are here to stay. They get their own night of the week. And while commissioner Goodell vows to improve the product, the 2016 slate featured some razor-tight finishes and key divisional matchups.

Here is the complete Thursday night schedule, week-by-week, per NFL.com:

Looking at last year’s TNF schedule, it seems to be that the league attempted to put teams and matchups it expected to be very good near the front-end of the season. The schedule started off with a divisional battle: Jets at Bills. Then the Patriots, Cardinals, Broncos, Panthers and Packers featured in four of the next five Thursday games. That included the pre-week one Super Bowl rematch between the Panthers and Broncos which wasn’t officially a Thursday Night Football matchup. Although it was a football matchup. On a Thursday night.

If the pattern holds true, expect Thursday night games to mean something right off the bat.

We know that there are mixed feelings about football on Thursdays. The product on the field has been tough to watch at times, mostly because the teams are not getting enough time to rest and prepare.

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Either way, it’s hard to deny that there’s a special kind of intrigue about what’s going to happen on Thursday night. Even if it’s mostly about those iridescent uniforms.