2016 NFL Schedule Released

[silverscreenselect]

For the first time since 1970, the two Super Bowl teams will meet in the following season's opening game as Carolina (with Cam Newton) visits Denver (without Peyton Manning) on Thursday Sept. 8. Later that week, New England plays at Arizona in the first Sunday Night Football game, and the Monday doubleheader will feature Pittsburgh at Washington followed by the (once again) Los Angeles Rams at San Francisco. The Rams have their home opener the following Sunday against Seattle. Other highlights include:

-- Another recent Super Bowl rematch as Seattle plays at New England on November 13.

-- Three games in London, Indianapolis at Jacksonville October 2, Giants at LA Rams October 23 (at Twickenham Stadium in London), and Washington at Cincinnati October 30. The Giants-Rams game is the first game played outside Wembley Stadium and will be televised by the NFL network. All three games begin at 9:30 Eastern time, so Rams fans will have to get up before dawn to see this game. Also, Indianapolis will be the first NFL team NOT to have a bye week following the London game. Instead, they host the Bears the following week and get their bye several weeks later.

--On Monday, November 21, Oakland will "host" Houston in a game played in Mexico City, the second regular season game game held outside England or Toronto (which has hosted several Buffalo home games over the years). In 2005, Arizona played San Francisco in Mexico City as well.

--Thanksgiving is on November 24, and for the first time in three years, AFC teams will participate. Minnesota will be at Detroit on the CBS game and Washington at Dallas on the Fox game, while Pittsburgh plays at Indianapolis that night on NBC.

-- This year both Christmas and New Year's fall on Sunday. The New Year's games will be the final regular season games (all divisional games) and will all begin at 1:00 local time (1:25 for the West coast games) except for the Sunday night game to be chosen later. The previous week, most of the games will be played Saturday, Dec. 24, also at 1:00 (or 1:25 West Coast) local time. However, Cincinnati will play at Houston at 8:25 on the NFL Network, and on Christmas, Baltimore will play at Pittsburgh at 4:30 on the NFL Network and Denver at Kansas City at 8:30 on NBC.

--The Thursday night schedule is strange. NBC will televise opening night and Thanksgiving. CBS and the NFL Network will televise five games in the first half of the season, while NBC will partner with the NFL network for five late season games, including the Giants at Philadelphia on December 22, the final Thursday night game. The remaining Thursday night games will be available on the NFL Network only. Each team will appear once on Thursday night football and will wear "Color Rush" jerseys (bright jerseys designed by Nike to extract additional money from gullible fans) that week.

--The NFL network will exclusively televise four Thursday games, the Giants-Rams game from London, two Christmas week games and Miami at the Jets on Saturday night, December 17.

[Vandal]

[SpacemanSpiff]

...The Thursday night schedule is strange. NBC will televise opening night and Thanksgiving. CBS and the NFL Network will televise five games in the first half of the season, while NBC will partner with the NFL network for five late season games, including the Giants at Philadelphia on December 22, the final Thursday night game. The remaining Thursday night games will be available on the NFL Network only. Each team will appear once on Thursday night football and will wear "Color Rush" jerseys (bright jerseys designed by Nike to extract additional money from gullible fans) that week.

The reason for this NFL Network only games is simple - sweeps month (November). Yes, the NFL games can be a big draw for the networks, but not necessarily the Thursday night games.

And let's hope the jersey colors are at least contrasting, as compared to some they had last year on Thursday nights (and hope the officials aren't color blind):

[T_Bone0806]

the second Thursday night game of the season is a rematch of the Bills-Jets contest pictured above, which apparently means we get to see the "Christmas Colors" debacle again.



Ughh.

[Bob78164]

I was looking forward to seeing New York football here in Los Angeles. But the Rams' home game against the Giants is in London. --Bob

[silverscreenselect]

I was looking forward to seeing New York football here in Los Angeles. But the Rams' home game against the Giants is in London. --Bob

West coast teams typically don't play well in early afternoon road games on the east coast, but this is stretching it even further. And the Rams have already committed to playing another home game in London in 2017 as well.