When does the NFL schedule come out?
By Joe Romano
It may feel like the NFL never ends, but to football fans, the schedule release is basically a holiday.
The NFL offseason is in full swing. Free agency started officially on March 14th. Teams have signed players, big names have swung the strength of the league. It has also been one of the most active trade offseasons in recent NFL history.
Next up for the league, now that most of the free agents have signed, is releasing the schedule. One thing the NFL does well is balancing schedules. Every year the teams know who they play ahead of time, it’s the league’s job to place them week by week.
Each team will play their divisional counterparts twice, one at home and once on the road. The remaining 10 games are filled with a cross over from the opposite conference. This year the NFC East will play the AFC South, the NFC South plays the AFC North, the NFC West will play the AFC West and finally the AFC East will play the NFC North.
Now the league will take those teams and fill in the schedule. Another piece that has been a constant for teams is that they will play a divisional opponent on the last week of the year. That week plus bye weeks are two places that the league can build off of.
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A year ago the NFL released the schedule on Thursday, April 20. It was one full week before the draft. Both NFL Network and ESPN make a prime-time show out of the event. The sports world is in a bit of a down swing with the NCAA tournament wrapped up and neither the NBA or NHL into the playoffs yet.
With the draft being on April 26, that would put the schedule release sometime between April 17-24. April 19 would be the spot if the league followed the same plan as 2017. The NFL will have a formal announcement and it will be promoted across all sports networks.