Once upon a time, every team played at least once in prime time. More recently, every team played one — and only one — Thursday game after playing on Sunday.
While it forced fans to hold their noses and watch (or not watch) games like Titans-Jaguars on a Thursday night in December, it created some degree of equity and balance when it came to the demands placed on the various teams.
In recent years, that’s gone out the window. And for good reason. Better prime-time games featuring more attractive teams lead to bigger audiences. Bigger audiences allow broadcast partners to justify the massive rights fees they pay — and it seeds the soil for even larger rights fees the next time packages are available for bidding.
The new approach, with certain teams being overloaded by prime-time and other standalone games and multiple teams (this year, the Browns, Titans, and Saints) being treated like Michael Scott’s neon beer sign, creates a competitive imbalance.
“Certainly the better teams probably end up finding themselves more widely represented in the television windows, and therefore get out of the routine,” NFL V.P, of broadcast planning and scheduling Mike North said during a Thursday conference all with reporters. “The Chiefs, for instance, have been playing five, six, seven prime-time games, playing seemingly every day of the week. It doesn’t seem to have hurt them. So, yeah, that’s what comes with success.
North attributed the dynamic to a “constant balancing act” of “trying to figure out [how to] feed the fans, feed our broadcast partners with the games and the teams they want to see.” He said there’s “always . . . an eye towards competitive inequities, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt to the Chiefs.”
But the selection of prime-time games isn’t only about imposing on the teams that have been good. The process entails making a guess as to whether a team will be good, or at least interesting, regardless of whether the team has a history of playing well enough to deserve the burden.
Last year, for example, the Jets had seven standalone games in the first 11 weeks, including two Sunday-Thursday short weeks. The Jets got the chronically short straw, even though they haven’t been to the playoffs since 2010. At the time, North justified giving the Jets the scheduling business by explaining that the Jets “kind of owe us one” after Aaron Rodgers’s Week 1 season-ending Achilles tear made their 2023 prime-time games far less attractive.
In 2024, Rodgers started every game during the gauntlet, and beyond. And the Jets went 5-12.
This year, the Cowboys have six prime-time games (and a record four Thursday games) despite not making the playoffs in 2024 and, given their schedule, unlikely to do so in 2025. Likewise, a pair of non-playoff teams who aren’t currently regarded as short-list contenders — the Dolphins and Falcons — have been tabbed for FIVE prime-time games each. (Both teams also have an early-morning standalone European game.)
The league apparently is making a bet that Miami and Atlanta will be good. Having six standalone games could help make that a self-defeating prophecy.
The league also expects that the Titans, Browns, and Saints will be not too good. And it will be not bad for them to have the routine and normalcy that comes from playing most of their games at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sundays. (The Browns will play a standalone game in London.)
Two years ago, the Texans played 16 games at 1:00 p.m. ET, before landing on Saturday night for the de facto AFC South championship game against the Colts. Houston parlayed their low profile into a very unexpected playoff berth.
This year, don’t be surprised if the Titans make a run at the same accomplishment. Overlooked and disregarded (just like No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward was during the draft), the Titans can quietly go about their business, stack wins, and get themselves into postseason contention.
And then pay they’ll pay the piper with plenty of prime-time games in 2026. It’ll be better to do it that way, than to play well enough to not make the playoffs, but to catch the league’s eye when it’s time to make out next year’s schedule.
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