The 16 teams in each conference are split into the East, North, South and West divisions every division has four teams.Įvery team will play 17 regular-season games with one bye week. The league’s 32 teams are split into two conferences - the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL's scheduling formula ensures that all teams will play every team from every division in the other conference once every four years. It takes thousands of cloud-based computers to produce thousands of possible schedules - a process that sets the stage for the schedule makers to begin the arduous task of picking the best possible one. A formula determines each team’s opponents every year, and a rotating schedule ensures that every team plays each of the other 31 at least once in a four-year period. The schedulers are also constrained by internal factors. The league begins collecting information from the clubs in January about any events that may create scheduling conflicts. The schedule makers will have to work around events that are already scheduled to take place in or near NFL stadiums - events that may compete with the games, put undue stress on the playing surface, or create traffic or logistical nightmares. The NFL schedule makers - Vice President of Broadcasting Michael North, Senior Vice President of Broadcasting Howard Katz, Senior Director of Broadcasting Blake Jones, Director of Broadcasting Charlotte Carey, Vice President of Broadcasting Onnie Bose, and Broadcasting Senior Coordinator Lucy Popko - must consider the fans, the league’s broadcast partners and many other factors when building the 272-game schedule that spans the 18 weeks of the NFL season and showcases the league’s best matchups and talent.

The schedule makers consider bye weeks and travel to maintain competitive equity.

Flexible scheduling helps showcase the best late-season matchups to the largest audiences.

The NFL uses a rotation system to make sure each team plays one another at least once every four years.

The schedule makers create hundreds of thousands of possible schedules before picking the final version.Each spring, six NFL executives take on an enormous task: creating the NFL schedule for the next season.

Broken by S.J. West