What’s new this NFL season? Glad you asked. Frank Schwab takes you through the info you need to know.
In 2023, the NFL accounted for 93 of the 100 most-watched shows on television. Simply, we can’t get enough of NFL games on our screens.
The NFL makes annual tweaks to the schedule with its broadcasting partners in mind. Here are the most important changes to the schedule and to broadcasts this NFL season:
Has there ever been a more anticipated debut in the broadcast booth than Tom Brady? Perhaps the Dennis Miller experiment on “Monday Night Football” comes close. But it’s rare that who’s in the booth is the biggest story for a game between two good teams. That’s the case in Week 1, when Brady will be the color commentator for the Dallas Cowboys-Cleveland Browns game.
Brady signed a flabbergasting 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox. To put that in perspective, Brady’s career earnings in the NFL over 23 seasons were a little more than $317 million, according to OverTheCap. Now we’ll see how Brady’s personality translates to the booth.
Life isn’t always fair, and Olsen’s demotion is an example. Olsen, the former tight end with the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers, quickly became a star in the Fox booth. He was arguably the best color commentator on NFL broadcasts last season. But along came Brady, who has never called a game, and that bumped Olsen from Fox’s No. 1 team to its second team.
“My aspirations are still to be a No. 1 analyst, whether it’s at Fox or elsewhere,” Olsen said this offseason, via Panthers Wire. “That will never change as long as I do this. I’m not just content to be there, I’m not just happy to have a seat. I want the top seat, and I want that wherever that opportunity allows and I’ll never stop working for that. I feel more motivated for that now more than ever.”
First Friday
The NFL seems dead set on taking over every day of the week. The NFL hadn’t had a Friday game on its opening week since 1970. That will change. The league also had never had a regular-season game in South America, so the Green Bay Packers-Philadelphia Eagles game will be historic in a few ways.
The Eagles and Packers face each other in São Paulo, Brazil, on Sept. 6, one day after the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs kick off the season in the annual Thursday night opener. The Brazil game is a fantastic matchup between two talented playoff teams from last season. On top of the rarity of the setting and date, this game will be streamed exclusively on Peacock. Let’s also assume this won’t be the last time the NFL sticks a Friday matchup in Week 1.
Christmas games on a Wednesday
Really, the NFL would have games every day if it could. This year Christmas fell on a Wednesday. The NFL has generally avoided Christmas, though it has slowly included more games when the holiday is on a weekend, and it has rarely played on Wednesday. No matter, as the NFL bent its schedule to have four teams play on Christmas. The Chiefs plays the Steelers in the first game and then the Ravens play at the Texans. Make sure to have Christmas dinner early.
The NFL has tinkered with the Monday night doubleheader idea, and it’s trying out four of them this season. Those will come in Weeks 3, 4, 7 and 15. What will be annoying for some fans is all four doubleheaders will have games that overlap. In the first three doubleheaders, the first game will start 45 minutes before the second game. In the last doubleheader, there’s a 30-minute gap. It’s an interesting strategy, one that’s likely to bother most fans.
Streaming the season
NFL fans were used to games being on traditional networks. Slowly but surely, the NFL has given streaming services exclusive games. Don’t expect that to slow down, either.
This season, Peacock gets the Week 1 Packers-Eagles game. The two Christmas games will be on Netflix as part of a three-year deal to broadcast games on the holiday. Amazon Prime Video has Thursday night games again and the second Black Friday game (Las Vegas Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs) too. There’s also a game that will be on only ESPN+. That will be a Week 7 Monday night game between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Chargers.
Get used to it. Being a devoted NFL fan in the future is going to mean subscribing to plenty of services.
CBS’ big change
The CBS changes aren’t as dramatic as the ones over at Fox, but they did shuffle a bit. Matt Ryan is leaving the booth and joining “The NFL Today” pregame show. He’ll be replaced in the booth by Jason McCourty, who will join Andrew Catalon and Tiki Barber calling games. Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms will no longer be on “The NFL Today.”
ESPN’s Sunday pregame show
The main switch at ESPN happened just a couple weeks before the season. Mike Greenberg is the new host of “Sunday NFL Countdown,” ESPN’s weekly pregame show. He is replacing Sam Ponder, who was fired by the network.
