After the conclusion of the NFL draft, the next event on the league’s calendar is the schedule release. Scheduled for Thursday evening May 11th at 8 pm Eastern on NFL Network, that may have to be pushed back
According to NBC Sports’ Peter King, there is a chance that the schedule may not be ready for release on Thursday.
It’s still likely to be done in time for release Thursday at 8 p.m., but I was told over the weekend it may not be finished in time. The 2023 mega-games—opening Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights, Thanksgiving Day, the new Black Friday tilt, the Sunday night game on Christmas Eve and the Monday tripleheader on Christmas—are not set in stone yet. The mega-games are usually solid by early May. The schedule crew is slated to meet with commissioner Roger Goodell this afternoon in New York, at which time more clarity on the tentpole games is expected. I’m told as of the weekend the NFL was still in search of options on the 272-game regular season slate, with a series of computers continuing to spit out alternatives.
The key here is that the premiere games aren’t set in stone yet. Both Fox and CBS have the ability to protect games and figuring out the schedule around that can be a challenge.
Hopefully, King is right that the schedule release will still go as planned.
