NFL Schedule: How It’s Evolved Over the Years

The NFL continues to reign supreme for sports in America, and thanks to the International Series, it is even taking over the globe. Speaking of the International Series, the NFL schedule has changed throughout the years, especially recently. From the preseason and playoffs formats to the number of regular season games, this article provides a bit of a time capsule of the NFL schedule and some games to look forward to in the 2024-25 season.

NFL Schedule: How it All Started

Since 1972, the Miami Dolphins have been able to pop their champagne and celebrate being the only team in NFL history to complete an unblemished season. However, as impressive as that is, the NFL season has changed over the years, including more games.

The Dolphins’ perfect season came right in the middle of what is considered the first era of the NFL schedule. This covered most of the 1970s (1970 to 1977), where they played 14 games. The divisions and conferences were also different back then, including fewer teams, so it certainly makes sense.

There were just three divisions in both the AFC and NFC, consisting of the Central, East and West, with four teams in each division. Each team would play their divisional opponents twice for six games, five other non-divisional conference games and then three games against the opposite conference.

The Longest Era of the Modern NFL

The first era of the modern NFL schedule was just seven years, and as the league incorporated the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers as expansion teams, we entered the longest era of the NFL schedule. Running from 1978 to 1994, it was a time in which the NFL did its best to make even strengths of schedule.

They did this by basing non-division conference games based on the previous year’s performance rather than it being a cyclic procedure that simply rotated. Their approach was to take teams placed in similar places in their respective divisions to face off against one another. As for the interconference games, they were still simply put on rotation.

However, since there were now some divisions with four teams and some with five teams, there would be significant periods in which some teams would never play one another. This would last until there were enough teams to have balanced divisions, which began the next era of the NFL schedule.

Short and Not Sweet

Although balanced, the era of the NFL schedule between 1995 and 1998 was the shortest ever. At this point, the three divisions in each conference had five teams, so they would have eight divisional games, one home and one away.

All teams would then play two other teams from the other two divisions in their conference, which were decided by their placements the previous year. Then, they would play four teams from a division in the opposite conference, again based purely on a cyclic rotation. 

Balanced Approach of Today

Following that short, three-year stint, we saw things go back to a more rational basis all around. Thanks to free agency, basing teams’ opponents on the prior year’s success was not nearly as reliable for an even strength of schedule across the board, and there were now even more teams.

So, what remains the same is playing each team with the four-team divisions twice, once at home and once on the road. Then, each team in a division will play an entire division within the conference and in the opposite conference. Those 14 games are set in stone, while the remaining two would be up to the NFL.

Then, in 2020, the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and players allowed for the expansion of the season from 16 to 17 games. It was put into place the following season in 2021, creating an 18-week schedule to allow for bye weeks. This is set to be in place through the 2031 season, but there has already been a push (primarily by the NFL itself) for an 18-game schedule.

Key games on the 2024-25 NFL schedule

Now that you have the history of the NFL schedule, let’s take a quick look at some of the marquee matchups for the 2024-25 season:

• September 5: Baltimore Ravens vs. Kansas City Chiefs (first game of the season)
• October 6: Buffalo Bills vs. Houston Texans
• October 13: Detroit Lions vs. Dallas Cowboys
• October 20: Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers
• November 24: San Francisco 49ers vs. Green Bay Packers