Imagine sitting in the NFL schedule makers’ suite with full decision-making power and seeing an opportunity to pit the New York Jets against the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football for the season-opener.
Here you have Sean Payton in a rematch with Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, whom Payton ridiculously hurled under the bus for a perceived inability to coach Russell Wilson, just months before Payton then shoved Wilson out the door and endured the biggest dead-cap hit in NFL history for his troubles. You have a healthy Aaron Rodgers, who would undoubtedly back Hackett amid the week-long rehashing of words, not to mention be enduring his own unpredictable personal publicity cycle that tends to follow him wherever he goes (a much-anticipated book on Rodgers’s life is set to be released a few weeks before, and Rodgers could very well be on the campaign trail for Robert Kennedy Jr., who reportedly considered Rodgers as a possible vice presidential candidate earlier this spring). You have Broncos rookie Bo Nix potentially starting his first NFL game. This is about as layered a programming event as one could possibly fathom, but is good only as long as Rodgers is healthy.
And while this is not a prediction—colleague Albert Breer actually brought the possibility to my attention while taping this week’s MMQB Podcast—it’s a window into how the NFL seems to operate when putting together the order of its yearly slate. Last year, it was almost egregiously tailored toward creating an attractive schedule of games with a strong narrative backbone, seemingly at the detriment of some less-interesting teams that had to slog through the season on shorter rest more frequently (and the Texans, who played no prime-time games but wound up making the playoffs and fostering Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year award winners).
