From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The National Football League (NFL) season begins the weekend after Labor Day. Each team plays 16 games during a 17-week period. Traditionally, the majority of each week's games are played on Sunday afternoon. Exceptions are one game each week being played on Sunday night, and another game being played on Monday night, known as Monday Night Football. For the last few weeks of the regular season (after the NCAA football regular season has concluded), the league typically schedules one or two additional nationally-televised games on Saturday or Thursday evenings.

In addition, the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions each traditionally host a game on Thanksgiving Day. In 2006, a third game was scheduled for that same day in primetime.

In its early years after 1920, the NFL did not have a set schedule, and teams played as few as eight and as many as sixteen games, many against independent professional, college or amateur teams. From 1926 through 1946, they played from eleven to fifteen games per season, depending on the number of teams in the league. From 1947 through 1960, each NFL team played 12 games per season. In 1960, the American Football League began play and introduced a balanced schedule of 14 games per team over a fifteen week season, in which each of the eight teams played each of the other teams twice, with one bye week. Competition from the new league caused the NFL to expand and follow suit with a fourteen-game schedule in 1961. From 1961 through 1977, the NFL schedule consisted of fourteen regular season games played over fourteen weeks. Opening weekend typically was the weekend after Labor Day, or even two weekends after Labor Day. Teams played six, or even seven exhibition games. In 1978, the league changed the schedule to include sixteen regular season games and four exhibition games. From 1978-1989, the sixteen games were played over sixteen weeks.

In 1990, the NFL introduced a bye-week to the schedule. Each team would play sixteen regular season games over seventeen weeks. One week during the season, on a rotating basis, each team would have the weekend off. As a result, opening weekend was moved up to Labor Day weekend. In 1993, the league adjusted the schedule to include two bye weeks per team, and the sixteen games were played over eighteen weeks. In 1994, the schedule was changed back to seventeen weeks.

Since the 2002 season, the league has scheduled a nationally televised regular season kickoff game on the Thursday night prior to the first Sunday of NFL games to kick off the season. The first one, featuring the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants, was held on September 5, 2002 largely to celebrate New York City's resilience in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks ^[1]. Since 2004, the NFL has indicated that the opening game will normally be hosted by the defending Super Bowl champions as the official start of their title defense.

Currently, each team's 16-game regular season schedule is set using a pre-determined formula:

A sample scheduling grid, with a single team's (the Browns) schedule highlighted. Under this hypothetical schedule, the Browns would play the teams in blue twice and the teams in yellow once, for a total of 16 games

• Each team plays the other three teams in their division twice: once at home, and once on the road (six games).
• Each team plays the four teams from another division within its own conference once on a rotating three-year cycle: two at home, and two on the road (four games).
• Each team plays the four teams from a division in the other conference once on a rotating four-year cycle: two at home, and two on the road (four games).
• Each team plays once against the other teams in its conference that finished in the same place in their own divisions as themselves, not counting the division they were already scheduled to play: one at home, one on the road (two games).

This schedule guarantees that all teams will play each other at least once every four years, and will play in every other team's stadium at least once every eight years. Prior to 2002 (when the league expanded to 32 teams) the league used similar scheduling rubrics, though they were adjusted for the number of teams and divisions. From 1970-1994, and again from 1999-2001, the league did not have equal numbers of teams in every division, which allowed for unbalanced schedules. The only time since the merger that the league has been completely "balanced" has been from 1995-1998 (with 6 divisions of 5 teams each) and since 2002 (with 8 divisions of 4 teams each). Additionally, prior to 2002, teams always played four of the teams from a division in the other conference on a rotating basis, but not their own; meaning that while an AFC team would be more likely to play each NFC team on a regular basis, they could go far longer without playing every team in their own conference. For example, between 1970 (when the leagues merged) and 2002 (when the current schedule was introduced) the Denver Broncos and the Miami Dolphins played only 6 times; including a stretch (1976-1997) where they met only once in 22 seasons.^[2] Under the current system, they are guaranteed to meet at least every third year.

For the 2007 season, the assignments will be:

To date, only two NFL regular season games have been played outside of the U.S. The first was the 2005 game between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers, which was played in Mexico City.

In October 2006, NFL club owners approved a plan to stage up to two international regular season games per season beginning in 2007 and continuing through at least 2011. ^[3] The New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins played at Wembley Stadium in London on October 28, 2007 for the first of these games.^[4][5]

The longterm plan is to have two international games played every year, on a 16-year rotating schedule that would guarantee that each team would get to play twice over that span: once as the home team and once as the away team.^[3]

1. ^ Associated Press (2002-09-05). Niners edge Giants on late field goal 16-13. NFL.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-17.
2. ^ Denver Broncos Vs. Miami Dolphins. The Football Database. Retrieved on 2007-09-22.
3. ^ ^{a b} "Resolution approved for international games", NFL.com, 2006-10-24. Retrieved on 2007-01-11. 
4. ^ "London to host 2007 regular-season game", NFL.com, 2007-01-16. Retrieved on 2007-02-10. 
5. ^ Dolphins will host Giants in a game in London. ESPN.com (2007-02-01). Retrieved on 2007-02-02.