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Chiefs, Cowboys on Their Own Tier When It Comes to the NFL Schedule

Next week, the spring league meeting and OTAs kick off. Until then, we have some takeaways after last week’s NFL schedule release …

The NFL people I talked to last week uniformly said the biggest change this year in the scheduling challenge was working off the blank slate that dropping conference network affiliations created. That said, those worried that they’ll be nostalgic for the NFC on Fox or the AFC on CBS in the coming years don’t have much to get worked up over.

While those networks don’t have ownership of those games anymore—creating a situation where the broadcast partners were competing for marquee games, rather than taking them away from one another—there are still minimums in place, so there’s a baseline of AFC games on CBS and NFC games on Fox. Also, the broadcast setup is still largely the same, and, when it came time to horse trade, it was obvious to everyone how CBS and Fox leaned.

“It’s really important for Fox and CBS, they are committed—We are the network of the NFC at Fox, and We’re the network of the AFC at CBS,” says NFL VP of broadcasting Onnie Bose. “And so those minimum number of games retain that identity. The plurality of Chiefs and Bills and Bengals games will appear on CBS. And the plurality of Cowboys and Bears and Rams games will appear on Fox. So that’s the building block of it. And, really, we talked about it earlier, the nature of the politicking changed for the top-end games; it’s not taking it away or keeping it. We were going to distribute those as equitably as possible.

“And then on Sunday afternoon, where most of our games are played, and most of our games are consumed by fans, it gave us the flexibility where, once you meet the minimum, once the computer knows it’s got the minimums for every team that it’s obligated to provide, it’s able to build out a Sunday afternoon on CBS or Fox making sure that we have strong windows. We always want to have interesting games and a mix of geography across Sunday at 1 and Sunday at 4:25.”

The NFL’s been coy about the minimums. But I can tell you that the minimums are set on a per-team basis—CBS is guaranteed a certain amount of games with each AFC team, and Fox is guaranteed a certain amount of games with each NFC team. And if you want to read the tea leaves here, the Chiefs and Cowboys would be on their own tier as far as desirability to the networks goes, and Kansas City has eight games on CBS, and Dallas has eight games on Fox.

While we’re there, the schedule release is also almost always a good indicator of the Q rating of every team. From that perspective, Bose and NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North were very open with me last week in saying that, again, the Cowboys and Chiefs are in their own tier in that department. And that much is obvious in some of the between-the-lines messaging that came with the schedule release.

• NFL teams can be scheduled for a max of six prime-time games in May, with the league retaining the ability to push that number to seven if it so desires through flex scheduling later in the year. Dallas and Kansas City were, indeed, among the four teams that maxed out with six prime-time games. Buffalo and the Chargers were the other two, and it’s not a coincidence that it took being part of the Peacock exclusive game, to be streamed on Saturday night of Christmas weekend, for those two to get there.

• You may think that pins the league in a bit on the Cowboys and Chiefs. But the NFL already has those two in so many prime-time, stand-alone and 4:25 (rather than 4:05) p.m. ET windows, that it’s unlikely they’d have to flex one of those two. And even if the league tried, it’s a good bet Fox and CBS would protect those games from being flexed.

• That brings us to the other way you can see how sought after a team’s games are—who has the fewest games that aren’t in a prime-time, stand-alone or the 4:25 p.m. ET window. Dallas has two the entire year (Week 8 vs. the Rams, Week 11 at Carolina). The Chiefs have only one (Week 2 at Jacksonville). Philly is another team with a low number, coming in with just four. And Buffalo has only five, with, interestingly enough, old ratings darling New England accounting for two of those five.

• My sense, talking to those guys, was the Monday Night Football window for Aaron Rodgers’s debut as a Jet, at home against Buffalo, was appealing in large part because of the engine that ESPN has to keep the conversation on the game, and Rodgers, going all day long coming out of the first Sunday of games. Five of the Jets’ first 11 games will be stand-alone, national broadcasts, which will satiate the public’s desire to see where that story goes. The Jets then start December with four consecutive 1 p.m. kickoffs, meaning, if they’re as good as some expect, they’ll be a prime flex candidate.

• I figured the league would want to hold back the Bengals and Bills games, and not schedule what could be pivotal AFC showdowns in the kickoff slot, and the league went further than just that—positioning all three games between the conference’s top contenders on the back end of the schedule. The Bengals and Bills face off Nov. 5 on Sunday Night Football, while the Chiefs get both in December (Buffalo on the 10th, and Cincinnati on New Year’s Eve).

And, as is always the case, a bunch of things will probably look differently in November than they do now, so we’ll see how much of this applies. That is, other than the Cowboys drawing ratings—I’m convinced at this point they could put their practice squad out there, and, as long as they were in those uniforms, it’d draw a number.