By John Breech
There are always some crazy quirks when it comes to the NFL schedule and this year is no different. The one weird thing about quirks is that not all of them are created equally. Some teams will be happy about the quirks on their schedule while plenty of other teams won’t be so thrilled with the quirks they’re handed by the league office.
So who got the craziest quirks? That’s a great question, so let’s find out.
Here are 17 of the weirdest quirks on the 2023 NFL schedule, starting with the Jets, who got a quirk that the NFL has only seen once over the past 90 years.
- Jets get to play 10 games in their home stadium. The Jets will be playing 10 games at MetLife Stadium, marking just the second time in 93 years that an NFL team will get to play 10 games at its home stadium. If you’re wondering how this happened, it’s simple: All AFC teams get to play nine home games this year plus the Jets have a “road” game against the Giants. Since 1930, this has only happened one other time and that occurred last year with the Rams. And just for the record, the 1929 Frankford Yellow Jackets also got to play at least 10 of their games in their home stadium, so it’s only happened three times in 94 years.
- Jets finally returning to Sunday night. The Jets will be hosting the Chiefs on Sunday night in Week 4, which is very notable, because it will mark the first time in almost 12 years that the Jets have played on Sunday night. Their last Sunday night game came in Week 10 of the 2011 SEASON. From a scheduling perspective, adding Aaron Rodgers definitely helped the Jets, who now have five primetime games this year after playing in just one last year.
- Jaguars returning to Monday night. The Jets won’t be the only team ending a long primetime drought. The Jags are scheduled to play on Monday night against the Bengals in Week 13. When that Dec. 4 game kicks off, it will have been almost exactly 12 years since their last Monday game. The Jaguars haven’t played on Monday since Dec. 5, 2011.
- London is calling. The Jaguars will be heading to London for back-to-back games this year, marking the first time in NFL history that a team has played two games in London in the same season, which also obviously makes it the first time a team has played consecutive games in London. The Jags will be the home team against the Falcons in Week 4 before playing as the road team against the Bills in Week 5.
- NFL is taking over Saturdays. The NFL schedule had a Saturday surprise: For the first time in more than 40 years, the league will be holding games on four different Saturdays during the regular season. During the upcoming season, there will be at least one Saturday game in Weeks 15 thru 18. The last time the NFL played on four different Saturdays came in 1978, the first year of the 16-game schedule.
- Thirsty Thursday. It’s starting to seem like the NFL is trying to permanently move every Lions game to a Thursday. Through the first 12 weeks of the season, the Lions will be playing three Thursday games. The three Thursday games is tied for the most any team has played in a season since 2000 (2021 Cowboys, 2019 Bears and 2000 Lions also played three Thursday games).
- Lions and Packers to make history. Of the Lions three Thursday games, two of them will be coming against the Packers, marking the first time since 1967 (The Super Bowl era) that two divisional rivals have had both of their games against each other played on a Thursday.
- An all-NFC Thanksgiving. For the first time in five years, there won’t be any AFC teams playing on Thanksgiving. All six teams playing on Turkey Day this year are from the NFC with Packers at Lions, Commanders at Cowboys and 49ers at Seahawks. This actually isn’t that uncommon. This year will mark the fourth time over the past 10 years that Thanksgiving has been an all-NFC affair.
- Leaving Las Vegas. Thanks to the way the schedule is constructed, the Raiders won’t be leaving Las Vegas a single time between Nov. 20 and Dec. 24. That 34-day stretch is the longest span that any team will go without playing a road game this year.
- NFL unveils the Monday tripleheader. For the first time in NFL history, there is a Monday tripleheader on the schedule. The reason it’s happening this year is because Christmas falls on a Monday and that’s when the tripleheader will be taking place. For a full look at the Christmas schedule, be sure to click here.
- Rough road to start the season. There are only four teams in the NFL who will have to play their first TWO games on the road this year and those teams are: The Packers, Raiders, Dolphins and 49ers.
- Rough road to end the season. There are also four teams that will close out the season with two straight road games and those teams are: The Falcons, Rams, Jets and Steelers.
- Bye, bye, bye. The Rams and 49ers are both facing FOUR teams that will be coming off a bye this year, which is the most in the NFL. That’s not ideal since teams will be getting extra rest and preparation time prior to playing them. On the other end of the spectrum, there are 12 teams who will be facing a total of ZERO opponents coming off a bye.
- Four teams get shut out of primetime. When it comes to primetime games, it’s going to be a boring season for fans of the Texans, Cardinals, Falcons and Colts, and that’s because those four teams weren’t given ANY primetime games this year. However, the Falcons and Colts will both be getting a stand alone game with each team playing in Europe, so that’s kind of a consolation prize.
- Extra long road trip. The Ravens, Panthers, Broncos, Giants and Titans have one big thing in common this year: They’re the only teams in the league that have to play three consecutive road games. Although that’s not ideal, NFL teams that get stuck with a three-game road trip on the schedule are 26-19 on those trips since 2018. However, last season was ugly for teams that had to deal with a three-game road trip as the Packers (0-3), Dolphins (0-3), Eagles (2-1) and Chiefs (2-1) combined to go 4-8.
Hopefully you can impress all of your friends this weekend with your quirky knowledge of the NFL schedule.