It’s schedule day! Later this afternoon the schedule will be released and we’ll all get to find out which dates of Dallas’ 12 primetime games fall on. Schedule day is a minor holiday to me since I get so starved for anything NFL-related in the offseason. I get to find out who the Browns play in meaningful games - the ones that occur before week 10 usually.
We might get one Monday night game, if that. The NFL always overreacts when deciding primetime games either with success or failure - the Browns got 5 primetime games last year and had a crappy season and will probably get 0… although 3 of those 5 games ended up being good/entertaining games anyway.
It will be quite interesting to see what they do with the Cardinals. The Cardinals aren’t a ratings draw, but I think they’ll get either a Monday or Sunday game.
The Cardinals got the screw job in the schedule last year with a Sunday game against the Giants, then a Thanksgiving game on the road in Philadelphia. Hopefully that won’t happen again.
Thursday: Titans at Steelers - The Champs get their due.
Sunday: Bears at Packers - Classic rivalry renewed, Cutler vs. Rodgers
Monday: Bills at Patriots - Brady is back and T.O. comes to town.
Monday: Chargers at Raiders - Um, yawn…this was the most compelling west coast matchup?
The Bears only get one MNF game all season, and it’s a home game versus the Vikings in the final Monday nighter of the season in week 16. Wonder if the schedule makers would like to redo that considering the Cutler hype.
I see the 49ers are playing at the Cardinals in Week 1. That absolutely should have been the other MNF game. It’s an NFC game on the west coast and features the Super Bowl runner-up. Stupid NFL.
I see your Bears scored the no-win situation of having the statistically easiest schedule. If you miss the playoffs, you suck. If you make the playoffs, well, whaddyawant – you had a cupcake schedule.
I see the Bears don’t have a single Afternoon start after week 3. No flex games for them, the NFL might regret that if the Cutler experiment is a raging success.
I’ll be looking forward to talking trash with all the other Dopers when the Bears play the AFC North considering how heavily represented they are here.
Heh. Closer examination is funny. Th bottom 3 teams in SOS are the Bears, Vikings and Packers who all play the Lions twice. The next 8 teams are the AFC North and NFC West teams that all each play the Lions once. And the 12th easiest schedule? The LIONS!
The Lions 0-16 record is making that chart almost meaningless.
When do the Lions get their first win? Week 8 against the Rams after a bye week? Week 9 against the Seahawks? Week 11 against the Brownies? Week 13 against the Bungles? The beginning of the Season looks pretty rough for them.
The Packers last 5 games are pretty brutal. Ravens, at Bears, at Steelers, Seahawks, at Cardinals. The first 3 will be a meat grinder and they might go into those last two all banged up and desperate. I kinda like it.
The Vikes have some ugly spots to worry about as well. They have the Ravens and at the Steelers back-to-back in weeks 6 and 7 and then have to go to Green Bay before their bye week. They finish the season with at Panthers, at Bears and the Giants. The Williams wall had better be healthy and on the field for those game, and if they enter the season suspended it could make the soft start a little rougher. They’ll have to go 3-0 versus the Browns, Lions and 49ers without them, if they win the schedule is a blessing, if the lose it’s a curse.
The Bears probably have the friendliest schedule. They start rough with at Packers and Steelers, but then they get a break with the Seahawks and Lions before the bye. They exit the bye with 3 very winnable games before facing the Cardinals at home. The final stretch of games will be important with 2 games against the Vikings and home games against the Eagles and Packers and a trip to Baltimore but games against the Rams and Lions should soften that stretch some.
I like it our chances and if Ryan, Flacco and McNabb have rough seasons our schedule gets a lot simpler.
It is odd. The Cards opened on MNF against the 49ers in SF in 2007 and then played them at home on MNF last year. This year, another Cards/49ers MNF matchup.
The 49ers and the Raiders both do fairly well in the ratings. The 49ers still have fans from their glory days and the “Raider Nation” will still draw viewers even though the Raiders have been horrible for the past few years.
Just did a quick run through the Eagles’ schedule. First thing I noticed, did they drop down to two preseason games? When did that change?
I read on ESPN.com that the Eagles have the 9th toughest schedule based on last season’s results, which means almost nothing, really. They have an early bye (week 4), and I’m never a fan of the early bye. Especially not for a team with so many injury-risks at important positions. I was optimistic about the Eagles finishing with 10-12 wins in '08 when I looked over the schedule before the season, but I’m not nearly as hopeful this season.
The most difficult stretch appears to be weeks 11-14 (@Chi, Was, @Atl, @NYG) where the season could easily fall apart and make the relatively easy finish meaningless. The Eagles will have to build up a strong record in the first 6 weeks in order to survive the brutal middle, and if my predictions are right, it won’t matter anyway.
I see two things that spell doom to me. First is that every single really tough team on the schedule is an away game. @Car in week 1, @Chi in week 11, @Atl in week 13. The creampuffs the Eagles face at home would be teams that, were the Eagles away, they would have a chance of picking up a valuable road win. Between the extremely tough divisional road games and the non-divisional road schedule, where will the Eagles pick up any road wins?
Secondly, going from Philly to Oakland to Washington and then from Philadelphia to San Diego to Chicago is doing this team no favors.
Hopefully an easy opening part of the schedule builds some momentum and confidence that can help the team through the tougher spots. I don’t see it.
Arghhh… you’re killing me. Just as I was trying to get excited about Seahawks football again.
Actually, I think the league agrees… no Monday Nights and no prime time at all for the Seahawks this year.
It was a sad state of football affairs in Seattle last year, but it looks like things could be decent this year if Hasselbeck doesn’t take any major shots to his back and blow out that bulging disc again. But hey, at least we have a good soccer team now!
The Seahawks could be an interesting team this year. They still have talent and it all revolves around Hasselbeck. But, even if he’s back I’m not sure I see them contending with the best of the NFC. They feel like an 8-8 team that wins all the games it should and loses the tougher ones.
