How is the NFL Schedule Created? | NFL Explained
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
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Basketball and hockey schedule planning would be insane as so many NBA and NHL teams share arenas and the two leagues play at the same time of year.
Also play in the factor that the arenas are also used for concert and other sporting events as well. I am aware the NHL and NBA teams have priority first for home games over concert and other entertainment events.
it depends on who the primary tenant is in the builidng. the nba team may have priority over the nhl team or vice versa which has to be taken into account
I’m sure the NHL and NBA have priority over everything else. The people who do those schedules, while also working around other events at those are paid extremely well, they’re definitely not making peanuts.
This is the most in depth AWS ad I've ever experienced
Actually a really cool BTS of the scheduling process. Was interesting to think about how the draft could affect the schedule just a couple weeks before its released.
They used to release the schedule before the draft. Doing so after the draft now doesn’t just add a news cycle where the NFL is in the headlines, it also allows them to ensure that the key draft storylines are somehow reflected in the scheduled.
Never even thought of that, draft shockers affecting what would be the high priority national games
I like how Val’s board confirms that the MNF and SNF relevance pretty much switched when SNF went to NBC lmao
I thought it was somewhat well known that NBC bought the MNF package and moved it to Sunday
That’s confirmed in the book “Those Guys Have All The Fun”, when NBC took over SNF, ESPN went for MNF, leaving ABC without NFL.
With more and more people ditching cable, it becomes a bigger issue for MNF not often being on broadcast tv.
@@eddiebellamy7605 Technically, since ABC owns ESPN, they still have football, but I get your point.
@@eddiebellamy7605 If my 'home-team' is playing Monday night, he game will be on local broadcast tv.
Imagine the guys who do the mlb schedule 😳
That’s torture
It’s done electronically there’s a video
A husband and wife did it by paper for 20 years.
@@KMcNally117 that would’ve been an absolute grind
@@911___________DIVOC Just because it isn't wildly popular or mainstream doesn't give you the right to call millions of people "no one."
Wait, a strong Thursday night schedule is a goal? Never seemed so to me..
Also, every team must one primetime game, which is why Thursday Night is a dumping ground.
Every team is required to have one thursday night football game so that's why they put trash games there
I thought Jags vs Titans/Texans was the objective
I mean they probably have maybe one good TNF game? i think... but I totally agree with you lol
It is but I wish it was Monday night because ESPN always has the worse broadcasters
i made my own 16 team league with axis football. i spent all night making a 12 game + bye week schedule, and though it wasnt perfect i was still proud of myself for making my own football schedule. i cant imagine having to do 18 weeks and 32 teams
Can you create your own schedule with axis?
@@rafa57games i wish but no it has a default 32 team schedule just like the nfl. you can however put your custom teams in the league and choose their division and conference
These are gold, the NFL needs to put more of these type of behind the scenes videos out!
In the 2021 schedule, there is at least 1 divisional game every week. That might not be a rule but its something I noticed.
Ehh i think its just something thats bound to happen
I think it’s impossible to not have one
I think this is possible if you cram them into the first six weeks, though I seriously doubt it would ever happen
Given that there’s 96 divisional games and only 18 weeks, it’s not surprising
@@HufflepuffBaseball42313 i think the last week almost all or all of the games are divisional games
I wanna do this when I grow up. Sounds weird to some people but I love the feeling of power of sorting the schedule out.
Computer science. It’s a task scheduling problem with conflict optimization. You’ll never get it “right”, but you have to do the best you can. You could learn it.
There used to be people that did this job there was a video I saw about an old couple that used to make the NBA schedule
Seems boring af really.
@@johnsalem1795 Depends if your a hardcore NFL person this could be awesome... trying to argue the proper timing for primetime matchups... like TBvs NE in Week 4.... both teams are likely to walk in 2-1 or 3-0 based on early schedule indicators. However, New England is projected to compete for a wildcard while Tampa is a Super Bowl projected contender. Therefore the later in the season it goes the more of mismatch it might seem to the casual viewer. Nevermind the underlying storylines... like Mac Jones starting for New England is more likely to happen later in the season if at all. A major star could get hurt and derail the contest entirely.
The appeal of this is like putting a 1000 piece puzzle together. But the pieces are three dimensional. And they all have powerful attracting and repulsing magnets.
This is a cool video, I'm glad they're making more content to keep us educated on football matters.
Yeah, but it really glazes over the #1 problem, and that's regardless of how fair the schedule is via the computer, it still gets modified by higher ups because "oh we need to have these teams playing on prime time" which by default removes a bit of that fairness. I mean I get it there are some teams in certain years you dont want in Primetime because... well they suck... but by doing that you really do skew the fairness aspect of things, and show that it really is all about the money primarily. I mean if my team didn't have a single prime time game, as a fan I don't care I still get to watch my team every week, it only matters for the networks, and then also for certain owners who have more power than others it seems, ultimately those teams are popular by virtue of them making sure they are always in the limelight.
I hear you but even on that front is wishy washy. Bengals and Jets have been trash for several years but they each got a couple primetime games last year. Broncos have been mediocre since Manning retired and Broncos got 4 primetime games last year including a Sunday night battle against chiefs. It’s an inconsistent rubric to be honest
But did they mention that they couldn’t have done it without AWS
@@szn1580 they had new QBs
Jets and broncos didn’t
RIP Val Pinchbeck and I salute you for doing this by hand with no software
Who needs software when you have pistachios!
What a legend haha
@@911___________DIVOC get with the times, Clive
So basically Aaron Rodgers potentially leaving GB is making them full panic, since they literally mentioned that they went out of their way to schedule games based on him, and that major quarterbacks moving would disrupt their whole schedule xD
As a Broncos fan I'm crossing my fingers he and GB takes their deal.
Rodgers aint going nowhere
@@Riley_Mundt well at least you got russ
@@jakefromstatefarmtheog lol
ya that didn't age well 💀
The hardest Sudoku game ever haha kudos to everyone involved, we appreciate you!
yeah, but if you used a computer to run through every combination, then the sudoku game becomes easy.
They were so lucky that Aaron Rodgers wasn't traded on draft day. That would have burned all their work to the ground.
What you didn't want to see Bortles 6 times in prime time?
Uh oh....
I think that they were Aaron on the side of caution?
Rodgers could still screw everything up for them, and I'll be laughing to the bank if it happens (Broncos fan).
@@Riley_Mundt The only way he goes to Denver is if he retires and then unretires. You have 0 draft capital and Miller and Bridgewater is not that good of a trade.
I worked on scheduling systems for General Motors. There is real science behind every large scheduling system and real money to be made in a great schedule.
Pistachio.....This is nuts. I want this job
This is cool... I never knew or understood this process....
They need to show us how the NFL script is made
Not funny
sounds like a pissy little eagles fan
@@cameramike2515 actually it is pretty funny and true
@@cameramike2515 not funny 🤓🤓🤓
@@thepeytondog fax
Fascinating. Great production value and perfect balance between straightforward education, exclusive insights and entertainment. What makes a great documentary.
I can’t imagine how much more the NBA schedules would have to be sifted through
Yeah... As a NBA fan, I love to see that. But I guess building a MLB schedule is much difficult...
@@ramuelcruzada3207 my best guess is that they just use a randomizer for the NBA and MLB that follows the rules, because 82 or 162 games per team just seems impossible
@@liamskidmore5926 The MLB schedule was done by hand until the early 2000's www.espn.com/watch/player?bucketId=9410&id=52815513-8535-4f11-b4aa-278b9389ff11
It is actually easier, due to the bigger number of games. Less scarcity. Less 'per game' importance.
Leagues with more games in the season might be easier. The schedulers have a full week to stick games in, rather than just three or four days that most NFL games are usually played on. Once you get past what the various national networks want, the rest is probably just filling in around dates that arenas aren't available. What might be more frustrating is that the NBA, for example, is more likely to mess with how they want to do their schedules, and do that more often. The NFL is slow to change, and Baseball is practically an iceberg in comparison.
I’m glad they uploaded this! I absolutely love the aspect of how they make the NFL Schedule! I made an 18 week NFL Schedule in my head! I think this is so awesome!
They have 5000 computers working on it, and you just made one in your head huh lol? You mean for 1 team, or all 32 teams? And you followed all the rules?
I would really like to see a guaranteed Super Bowl rematch each year in the regular season if that's possible
Not a bad idea I always love seeing those
I remember week 1 TNF Panthers vs Broncos the year after the Super Bowl
It's not
Not possible to guarantee, but it's worth considering as a tiebreaker for good schedules, maybe?
@@rrivierareject03 isn’t there an “extra” game that is sort of picked at random?
I’ve always wondered about this and I absolutely love it
This was a great video. Loved the production on it, the music, the suspense, the drama. Extremely well done and fascinating way of telling a fascinating story. Please make more just like this.
The game preview guy is back!
I'm curious what is the most recent draft that caused major changes to the schedule before its release? That would be a fun mini video to watch. Same for last minute trades and signings.
True same that would be cool to see
Compared to literally any other sport, football schedule making seems to be way easier. There’s a pretty rough guideline that most games are played on Sunday, and no matter what a team only plays once a week. Now imagine baseball and basketball, where teams schedules don’t line up perfectly by week. The white Sox may end their series June 1st, but the guardians series lasts from may 29th-June 3rd. So much more difficult
Yeah but the NFL having less games has forced them to make every game as high quality as possible. Baseball teams are fine with having 100+ games that are shitty and boring and unwatchable with empty stands, but thats because they’re playing 100+ games anyway. Because it *is* easier to organize 32 teams into an 18 week schedule, one game per week + a bye week, there are a lot more demands from both teams and broadcasters. So, each game in the NFL has expectations in a way that something like basketball or baseball simply don’t. It’s the difference between a lake that’s 10 miles wide and 2 feet deep,, or a lake that’s half a mile wide and 200 feet deep, if that makes any sense.
@@DoctorCyan I mean I kinda agree, but the schedule is made out ahead of time. Like I could tell you who every team will face no matter what after week 18 next year. Won’t know when or what day, but they already have the matchups made, so it’s literally just slot and place
@@DoctorCyan”boring and unwatchable” that’s the best description of baseball I’ve ever seen.
You really take an NFL season schedule as a given, i‘d never have thought that there was so much work and mathematics behind this
Running into this while studying for a programming midterm is cool. That team is really working a dream job
So that additional game is indeed going to annually be purely based on standings? I knew it was always going to be versus the 2-years-off division and that they had arranged this year based on standings, but I figured that it was ultimately going to be a sixteen-year rotation and that they used standings as a way to initially form the rotation (since they had no previous constraint on which team should come first in the rotation).
I made my own schedule at 12 that followed some of these rules. I figured out the 6 in division games ,etc etc. I didn't follow the Television, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday night football thing but I had a very good understanding then. I am very proud that I could understand it more
Blah blah blah
Who cares
One of my dream jobs would be to a committee member who helps to create the NFL schedule yearly.
Reminded of the 30 for 30 about the couple that used to make the MLB schedule by hand
The scale is nuts
I run a Greatest Players of All Time League (using an old - but very good! - football simulation program) and one thing I've learned is to never schedule more than two games in any given week between two divisions. So, for example, the N.F.C. West plays both the N.F.C. North and the A.F.C. South in full in 2021 so in any given week there aren't more than two N.F.C. West vs. N.F.C. North or A.F.C. South games scheduled (I checked). Good stuff!
Thank you, I was so curious about this for so long!
1:37 “fix nyj” lol even the nfl’s predicting they’re going to have an off year
is it really an "off year" if it happens every year?
@@luked8449 not really; they were good 10 years ago
@@luked8449 They were 10 - 6 in 2015 - 2016 so they were good, just not good enough.
This is Awesome! I'm going into college soon and watching this makes me want to work with the NFL headquarters and plan things
So jets vs browns in the 2018 toilet bowl was part of a “strong Thursday night schedule”😂
For the schedule makers that game was one of the greatest successes of all time. Yes, both teams were bad the year before and the Jets continued to be bad that season, but from a storyline perspective it was great. Rookie QB vs. rookie QB, first win in 20 games for Cleveland, 14 point comeback by the number 1 pick coming in in the middle of the game for his first game like it's a wrestling storyline and two massive interceptions in the last two minutes in a one possesion game.
For the schedule it doesn't matter that both teams are bad, it probably was better that they were both at a similar low level to allow a close game than if a good team blows one of these teams away. The Jets played only two prime time games that season, their season starter on monday night where they outscored the Lions by 31 points, the sort of debut performance from Sam Darnold that has people hoping he can become good after three bad seasons, and this loss to Cleveland were the Brown's loosing streak ended. The rest of that season the Jets were well hidden at 1:00 PM on sunday.
this is one of my favorite UA-cam videos ever, I'm such a nerd for planning like this, love the detail
Can I please please know who is doing the voiceovers for these? His voice and character just match these videos perfectly!!
Maybe not it’s intention but every programmer watching this just realized how easy this is with the right code base. Should you ever have a strike, give me a weekend & a machine and I’ll knock this out for you.
You just have 5000 computers sitting around in your basement lol?
5:17 Love - Mahomes. The match up nobody was waiting for
Does seem interesting to say the least. I'd like to see them add a penalty for things that keep happening over and over. For instance, two things about the Vikings and Bears:
- The first of two matchup's each season since 2010 has been at Soldier Field (haven't had the 2nd matchup at Soldier since 2009)
- For the 6th time in the last 8 seasons including a stretch of 4 in a row from 2016-19, the Vikings will host the Bears in the final regular season game (the same thing can almost be said for Packers & Lions too). I just think there should be a rotation of divisional opponents for the final week instead of the same ones almost year after year (quite simply, the Vikings in Week 17/18 have played the Packers 2x, Lions 3x, and Bears 7x since the league mandated division games for the final week in 2010)
I wish that they would make the last 3 weeks of the schedule division games against all 3 teams in your division. That would make the divisions up for grabs and it would narrow down a few scheduling possibilities.
I think if you put too many division games toward the end of the season, you could end up having a lot of meaningless games among division opponents, because one team could have the division wrapped up with 3 weeks to go in the season.
@@williamshultz4620 That's definitely a risk, but I'm thinking that oftentimes the division games are the ones that determine the division winners, so if you delay those, then it's more likely that at least one of them per team will help determine the division. Also, wild card positions are often determined by division record and position within the division, so many of them are still very relevant at the end of the season.
@@jasonfischer8946 yes divisional tiebreakers are to be decided before you would apply wildcard tiebreakers against another team in the conference.
I guess to me it would depend on the recent track record of a certain division. Like when Brady was in New England, it was New England winning and usually in unconvincing fashion. So you woulda ended up with New England with a cakewalk to finish the season with only home field to decide and in that case maybe have them play a against a more competitive team in the conference 2nd or 3rd last week of the season at least.
I watched this and feel I'll never have to worry about the NFL schedule again. Good work people
Thanks for this.
When it was 16 games, I at least knew the breakdown.
But damn, that 17th game....
It's weird but understandable when you look at the other parity games
Very well done and explained. It really makes you wonder how they did it with only paper.
I imagine they have to spend 7 days with that one guy as he convinces them 8 primetime cowboys games a year
This is a great AWS ad
I didn't know this much went into doing a schedule for the NFL. Very interesting. I wonder how the NBA, NHL and MLB do their schedules.
One thing that always confused me was which team you played coming off a bye. For a few years there the Chargers played multiple games each year against teams coming off their bye. Which means some teams weren't facing a team off a bye at all. Surely it would have been easier and fairer to make the game after your bye week to always be against another team coming off their bye. That way any advantage would be evened out.
It’s just very difficult to make a schedule perfect in terms of that kind of fairness. If you take the time to look at the list at 10:27, there are things that take much higher priority and are absolute musts compared to things like bye-week fairness. It takes that into consideration but other things get priority. And if you watch later at 13:37 the fairness score (lower being more fair) of a very-good schedule was 3000+, meaning it’s incredibly rare to find an even close to perfectly fair schedule.
Yeah it does happen, and the team coming off the bye does beat the other team a little more often. I think it was 54% last I checked because it seemed to happen to the Vikings a lot xD.
8:27 he wasn’t able to put the tag in the needle 🤣 so he just moved it
I can’t be the only one who wants a puzzle game based around this right?
This is actually fascinating I had no idea it was so involved
I love the history they shared about how Val used to do it.
Wow this was pretty cool to learn how it’s made!!
I had expected this to spend a lot more time telling us what the criteria are and their approximate weightings. Those twenty or thirty seconds are basically why I was here.
Everything is about storylines, plots, subplots, rivalries both old and new, they usually try to mix in some old Super Bowl match ups and some dream match ups, or this coach used to be at this team, let his old team play the new team, etc. It's really quite brilliant. Oh and ratings, ratings, ratings. But duh
The Game of Thrones music had me really invested in watching this 🤣
I’d love to see the possible schedules that didn’t make the cut
I feel like this video should be on “Stand Up Maths”.
These people really love their job. Imagine loving your job.
5:18 Jordan Love vs. Chad Henne BEST GAME OF 2021 🔥🔥🔥
This video brought to you by the NFL's love for AWS. Yes, we get it - distributed computing is cool for large solution space problems.
Bro...as an IT admin that uses AWS...this is just amazing. Gotta love that trusty alarm clock. I know it all too well...especially in the first two months
All this talk about how many possibilities for a 17 game schedule, and I'm just thinking about the 82 game NBA or 162 game MLB schedule. LOL
The MLB gets away with series, and both leagues don't have conditional matchups
@@insertcolorherehawk3761 Yeah, the MLB schedule is released before the end of the previous season.
Thanks. I was having trouble falling asleep. This did the job in less than 10 minutes.
Keep doing this type of stuff I love these
This is so excellent. Loved the behind the scene look into this.
the objective function is probably a combo of "competitive fairness" and predicted revenue, then subtracted by the penalties they mention.
Thanks for sharing this. It really makes me appreciate all the hard work that goes into the schedule.
Thanks for all your hard work and effort.
This was a cool video! Now we need one to explain how anyone could think the new taunting rules are a good idea
The most lucrative game of sudoku ever played.
The one error that got thru is that Atlanta had to give up one of their home games to London, while all the AFC teams except JAX plays 9 home games. Should have been NO vs NYJ in London
Teams have to agree to play in London and falcons were willing to give up a game to go on the practice
It amazes me that it takes millions of dollars worth of hardware, software, and manpower, to do what was previously done by one dude.
Bro imagine the NBA schedule 💀
Or the NHL or MLB schedules.
Crazy how they congratulating dude for almost being lazy while
Working it’s crazy what you can do when you get to the top.
I’m sure he really was a genius with the process though
Lazy? I bet his brain was cooking. That's why he needed all the nuts, to feed the brain doing all the work.
a really hard sudoku
Love videos like this. Keep them coming. Thanks
Interesting! I would like to better understand on how bye weeks are determined.
To my knowledge there are no byes during the first or last 4 weeks of a season....at least that’s what I’ve seen from previous seasons since I heard about it
Love this video, keep up NFL explained please!!
Call me crazy, but I need to be on this team. I love football and mathematical models. This would be my dream job!
Me too. Sign me up. I might even work for free. :)
I tried making NFL schedules back in my teens, when they played 16 games and there were no byes. I knew all the rules, and how opponents were determined, but I could never pull it off. I didn't have to worry about important prime time games or anything like that. Toward the end I always ran into a dilemma where there were only a few spots open in different weeks for a few teams that still had to play each other, so you have to start shuffling things around. It creates a domino effect, when you move one game, then you gotta move another, and that charade continues until you start breaking a ton of rules and you're just chasing your tail at that point. So you get frustrated, and you either start all over, or you give up lol.
Someone show this video to Madden lol. Week 4 bye every season and at least one 3-game road trip every other year
3-game road trip? By the 2nd season you start seeing 7 game road trips with the generated schedules xD.
These are the people writing the script
I think, that the schedule should be more equal. Division games should be played more fairly. A team should play each division rival once in the first five, and the last five weeks. Sometimes, two match ups between two division rivals are only two weeks apart.
Seriously, that's a great way to split up repeat battles because I HATE seeing the same team battle twice in three weeks.
Not to mention my team plays the Cowboys then Eagles then Cowboys again then Eagles again in Weeks 14-17. What kind of craziness/laziness is that?
I think that's a consequence of the number of required divisional rivalry games that HAVE to be on the schedule. As for why they aren't spread out more, it adds fuel to the fire of the "playoff race" - no NFL team (and more importantly the businesses associated with them) wants a "pointless" game that won't potentially affect another team's playoff chances in SOME way, because fans won't watch 'em. Plain and simple.
Mike North seems like a great guy! Knows what he’s doing!
One of the world's best.
Why can’t the NFL divide early and late afternoon games equally?
Yea!
Because there aren't many west coast teams compared to east coast.
@ poor excuse. Kansas City and Buffalo played in the late game and it was in Buffalo
I've understood the schedule rotation and exactly how opponents are decided and how you can in theory predict a teams schedule years in advance outside of 3 games.......but whenever I try to explain it to people their eyes kind of gaze over and they start daydreaming about ponies
All this work and they still have divisional opponents playing twice in a 3 week span… just a couple movements would fix that issue. They make it harder than it is imo. They needed more Val tbh
I like the human element of Val just staring into the void on the board. I think it'd be helpful if they start out by pinning the biggest matchups of the year on that board, and then build around that
no
I don't know why but the reactions they had to the draft were funny to me. They come in like "let's hope nothing happens tonight to ruin the schedule". Then they go "the first two picks are going to be Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson, that'll be okay, the fun starts with pick three". Pick three comes in and it's Trey Lance and they're like "welp there we go, let's just kick back and enjoy the rest of the draft". Like literally the only thing they were worried could affect the schedule was the QB pick at number three and nothing else 😂
Imagine planning your schedule around Greenbay-KC only for Rodgers to be traded to Denver
I think like that’s why they didn’t immediately put it in a prime time spot. They might do it later in the season once Aaron stays, but it’s not a prime-time game rn
7:32 , So...we create the board with the list of team include their match up (Week 1 - Week 17) . Kick the board and see how it goes
And yet still so many people always bring up the old "NFL once again rigging the schedule for X player" lmao
I think most people still think the NFL is about competition and athletic performance, when it's really about ratings and money.
NFL schedulers, if you can hear me, please stop putting the divisional rivalry games and their rematches so close together! Not enough changes when you place the divisional rivalry and the rematch with only a game or two in between them! Put at least 5 to 7 weeks between divisional rivalry and the rematch!
No more 8-8 seasons only winning seasons and losing seasons
8-8-1😈
@@laurinnn or 0-0-17
they clearly didnt use this software for the thursday night schedule in the 2022-2023 season
I can relate, it's like scheduling 134 medical students into 11 clinical rotations, that could be in any order.
Limitless possibilities!
Its so crazy to think that they could have a perfect schedule but if a big music artist has a stadium for a weekend it throws it all off… awesome stuff