I'm going to start the NFL thread for the upcoming season. It's a little early than I originally planned for the most part, but not by much. Instead of bumping up the off-topic thread, I figured that with training camp next week, coupled with the fact that no one's posted in the off-season thread in over a month, I would get this going. After all, giving how summer flies by, the 2023 NFL Season will be here in no time!
The 104th season, better known as the 2023 NFL Season, is slated to begin on Thursday, September 7th, 2023, at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. The preseason gets going real soon; as of this post, it’s actually 2 weeks away. The Hall of Fame Game featuring the New York Jets & the Cleveland Browns, takes place in 14 days & features several members of the HOF class of 2023 that will be inducted two days later on that Saturday in Canton, OH.
For the 18th time since 2004, the season will begin with the defending champions hosting another opponent. The math says it’s the 20th time since they started doing this 19 years ago, but that’s not the case. Baltimore was featured in the NFL kickoff a decade ago, but that was on the road against Denver due to an MLB conflict with the team from the same city. New England did open their 2019 season at home, but it was pushed back 3 days to make room for Green Bay/Chicago as part of the celebration of the 100th season of the NFL.
The home team/champs winning percentage still decent despite LA’s loss against Buffalo a year ago. That winning percentage is expected to increase after the game between Detroit & Kansas City comes to an end. Other games scheduled in Week 1 include 13 Sunday games on Fox & CBS including a CBS/Fox game of the week at 4:25 PM Eastern. Week One will wrap up with two primetime games: one on NBC with Sunday Night Football (18th season) and on Monday on ESPN with MNF (18th season and 54th overall). Currently, it is scheduled to conclude on Sunday, February 11, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada (Paradise, LV for official accuracy, I guess). The regular season is done on January 7, with the playoffs starting the following Saturday, January 13.
Returning this year is the Thursday Night Package. After 8 seasons of Network coverage for TNF, it’s exclusive to Amazon Prime. What’s new this year is a Black Friday game. Amazon Prime will get a game during Thanksgiving week, while NBC airs the 3rd part of the Turkey Day triple header for the 11th time since 2012 and 3rd consecutive. While there are changes to the studio teams for the NFL networks, the announcers remain the same. To be more specific, the top announcers remain the same as I imagine there are some departures and arrivals of other people with a typical network.
There are still 285 games on tap this year, as we’re in the third year of a 17-game schedule. The extra game is still AFC vs NFC. As was the case in 2021, the NFC travels to the AFC. Basically, the structure this season is the same as last year. Three seasons ago, they avoided a Super Bowl / Valentines Day conflict as they still had 16 games per team. However, it’ll be a possibility in 2027, but they’ll likely work stuff out by then (though TBH, whatever happens, life and business will continue for the most part)
