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The schedule is out – and Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com has a good overview.
The NFL will open its 2022 season where the final game of last season kicked off — in SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, as the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams host the Buffalo Bills on Sept. 8, the teams announced on Thursday.
The Bills-Rams matchup features elite quarterback play between Matthew Stafford and Josh Allen, who has guided the Bills to back-to-back playoff appearances. This game highlights a challenging schedule for the Rams, whose opponents have the league’s highest winning percentage from last season (56.7%). NBC will broadcast the game.
The Monday Night Football opener offers a intriguing storyline — Russell Wilson making his Denver Broncos debut against his old team, the Seattle Seahawks, in Lumen Field. Wilson guided the Seahawks to two Super Bowl appearances and nine winning seasons over 10 years. Seattle traded Wilson to Denver in March for multiple draft picks and veteran players. The game airs Sept. 12 on ESPN.
Other key Week 1 matchups include the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night, a rematch of last season’s Thursday night opener; the Los Angeles Chargers hosting the Las Vegas Raiders, reigniting a dramatic 2021 regular-season finale with playoff implications; the Cincinnati Bengals at the Pittsburgh Steelers, a clash of fierce AFC North rivals; and the Kansas City Chiefs making the trip west to play the Arizona Cardinals, two high-powered offenses in the desert.
The Buccaneers will face serious firepower in the first month of the season, with a Sept. 25 home opener against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers and a clash with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs the following week.
Other Week 1 matchups include the Jacksonville Jaguars, with new coach Doug Pederson, at the Washington Commanders, with new quarterback Carson Wentz. Pederson coached Wentz in Philadelphia and won a Super Bowl with the Eagles, although Nick Foles was behind center with Wentz injured.
Several other veteran quarterbacks will debut with new teams. When the Cleveland Browns open the season at the Carolina Panthers, Deshaun Watson could join them after his trade from the Houston Texans this offseason, though a potential suspension over alleged sexual misconduct looms large.
New Indianapolis Colts quarterback Matt Ryan faces Houston in a Week 1 division matchup. Several other key division matchups, meanwhile, are also on tap for Sept. 11: the New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots at Miami Dolphins (with newly acquired receiver Tyreek Hill starting the process of maximizing Tua Tagovailoa’s potential) and the Packers at Minnesota Vikings.
“Expecting to have an unbelievable crowd there,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell told the club’s website. “I’ve talked a lot about being on that visitor’s sideline, so I know what the Packers will be in store for on opening weekend. I expect to see a stadium full of purple. It’s a great opportunity for us and a challenge.
“What a way to start your season — a challenge but also a great way to kick-start what is hopefully going to be a great 2022.”
Also, it will be the Browns at the Panthers, San Francisco 49ers at Chicago Bears, Eagles at Detroit Lions, Baltimore Ravens at New York Jets and New York Giants at Tennessee Titans.
The Jets, one of the biggest wild cards of the early season schedule, open the season with four straight games against the AFC North — vs. Baltimore, at Cleveland, vs. Cincinnati and at Pittsburgh.
Week 1 games feature 10 home underdogs, the most in NFL history for a first week of the season, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Teams that will open on the road and will be home in Week 2 include Kansas City hosting the Chargers in the first Amazon Prime Video game on Thursday night.
The schedule-makers will have the Falcons jet-lagged early in the year with games at Los Angeles (Rams) and Seattle in Weeks 2 and 3.
Previously revealed was that one of the Christmas Day tripleheader games, Denver at the Rams, will be televised by Nickelodeon as well as CBS. The other Christmas games are Green Bay at Miami in the 1 p.m. slot, then Tampa Bay at Arizona at night.
Christmas Eve will also have a contest, with the Raiders at the Steelers.
The traditional Thanksgiving games will have Detroit hosting Buffalo, Dallas at home for the Giants and New England at Minnesota at night.
More holiday fare: 14 games on New Year’s Day, which will force some bowl games to adjust away from Jan. 1. The likely top matchups to begin 2023 include San Francisco at Las Vegas, Miami at New England and Denver at Kansas City.
Thirteen NFL teams — the 49ers, Bengals, Bills, Broncos, Buccaneers, Chargers, Chiefs, Cowboys, Eagles, Packers, Patriots, Rams and Steelers — have five prime-time games. The Lions are the only team currently without a prime-time slot, while the Patriots have four straight — from Nov. 24 to Dec. 18, three on the road and a home game against Buffalo.
Also previously announced were the international games. The Bucs and Seahawks will participate in the first regular-season NFL game in Germany on Nov. 13 in Munich. Green Bay will become the final team to play in Europe, facing the Giants on Oct. 9 at the home of Premier League soccer team Tottenham in London. The same site also hosts the Vikings and Saints the previous week.
Other international games include the Broncos vs. the Jaguars at Wembley Stadium in London on Oct. 30 and the 49ers and Cardinals squaring off in Mexico City on Nov. 21.
Week 15 features a tripleheader on Saturday, Dec. 17, though which of five matches will be switched from Sunday won’t be decided until closer to that weekend. The possibilities are Miami at Buffalo, Baltimore at Cleveland, Indianapolis at Minnesota, Atlanta at New Orleans and the Giants at Washington.
The final weekend, Jan. 7-8, 2023 — all intradivision matchups — will also have two games moved to Saturday. Those will be determined early in Week 18.
Nine teams will enjoy three-game homestands: the Cowboys, Giants, Bears, Lions, Vikings, Panthers, Buccaneers, Rams and 49ers. Four must endure three-game road trips: Kansas City, Miami, Green Bay and Philadelphia.
Byes begin in Week 6.
We will go through each team’s schedule next week. Today we look at the hands dealt to NBC, ESPN and Amazon.
Jimmy Traina of SI.com analyzes all three primetime slates:
When it comes to prime time and the NFL, Sunday Night Football always comes out on top with the best schedule. That’s true once again in 2022, and it’s all about quarterbacks.
Aaron Rodgers and the Packers will be on the Sunday-night stage three times (Week 2 against the Bears, Week 8 at the Bills and Week 12 at the Eagles).
Tom Brady and the Buccaneers will get three Sunday-night games, as well (at the Cowboys in Week 1, against the Chiefs in Week 4 and at the Cardinals in Week 16 on Christmas night).
Patrick Mahomes also has three Sunday night games: Week 4 at the Bucs, Week 9 vs. the Titans and Week 14 against the Broncos.
Joe Burrow and Russell Wilson each get two Sunday-night games.
Chiefs at Bucs in Week 4 is the best game on NBC’s slate, but the matchup that may generate the best ratings is Bucs at Cowboys in Week 1. Interestingly, the defending Super Bowl champion Rams play the season-opening game against the Bills on Thursday, Sept. 8, but only appear once this upcoming season on Sunday Night Football, in Week 17, which happens to be New Year’s Day, against the Chargers.
While NBC has the best schedule, Monday Night Football and ESPN have their best schedule in ages, including Russell Wilson’s highly anticipated return to Seattle to open the season in Week 1. Rams at Packers in Week 15 should be a monster game for the new booth of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. ESPN closes out its season with another strong game in Bills at Bengals, the very juicy Josh Allen–vs.–Joe Burrow matchup.
ESPN/ABC will also air a doubleheader in Week 2 with Titans at Bills kicking off on ESPN at 7:15 p.m. ET and Vikings at Eagles at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Next season, ABC/ESPN will air a doubleheader like this three times, as Albert Breer wrote about Monday.
The NFL did ESPN a solid by giving the network a string of several rivalry games, including Cowboys at Giants in Week 3, Rams at Niners in Week 4, Raiders at Chiefs in Week 5 and Broncos at Chargers in Week 6. ESPN gets Brady and the Bucs for one game in Week 13 against the Saints.
Amazon Prime is the new player in town, thanks to having the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football. Despite all the money Amazon spent for the package, and despite hiring two A-list people, Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit, to call the games, Amazon’s schedule features plenty of potential clunkers, most notably Steelers at Browns in Week 3, Eagles at Texans in Week 9 and Jaguars at Jets in Week 16. The good news for Amazon is that it does feature each team once, so it will get a crack at featuring the top quarterbacks in many games. The streaming service’s best game is Ravens at Bucs in Week 8. Other solid games include Bills at Patriots in Week 13 and Raiders at Rams in Week 14.
Some have said the NFL held back on ESPN’s Monday Night schedule in recent years because it wasn’t impressed with the quality of the announcers and telecast. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman would seem to have changed that. Is the schedule better? We don’t see many throwaway games (we put the games we thing are best in green, any shaky games in red):
Monday Night Football Schedule
The dates and matchups for ESPN’s Monday Night Football for the 2022 NFL season:
DATE MATCHUP
9/12 Broncos at Seahawks
9/19 Titans at Bills
9/19 Vikings at Eagles*
9/26 Cowboys at Giants
10/3 Rams at 49ers
10/10 Raiders at Chiefs
10/17 Broncos at Chargers
10/24 Bears at Patriots
10/30 Broncos vs. Jags (London)
10/31 Bengals at Browns
11/7 Ravens at Saints
11/14 Commanders at Eagles
11/21 49ers vs. Cards (Mexico City)
11/28 Steelers at Colts
12/5 Saints at Buccaneers
12/12 Patriots at Cardinals
12/19 Rams at Packers
12/26 Chargers at Colts
1/2 Bills at Bengals
1/7 Doubleheader (TBD)
* ABC exclusive
Here are the Amazon Thursday night and NBC Sunday night schedules (with the DB’s green and red ratings):
This will be the first year that Amazon Prime is the exclusive home of “Thursday Night Football” after it had been previously been broadcast by Fox.
Al Michaels, who joins the Amazon booth from NBC, will work call play-by-play for the games with Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN’s college football analyst, providing color commentary as the new broadcast duo.
Week Date Matchup
2 Sept. 15 Los Angeles Chargers vs. Kansas City Chiefs
3 Sept. 22 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cleveland Browns
4 Sept. 29 Miami Dolphins vs. Cincinnati Bengals
5 Oct. 6 Indianapolis Colts vs. Denver Broncos
6 Oct. 13 Washington Commanders vs. Chicago Bears
7 Oct. 20 New Orleans Saints vs. Arizona Cardinals
8 Oct. 27 Baltimore Ravens vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
9 Nov. 3 Philadelphia Eagles vs. Houston Texans
10 Nov. 10 Atlanta Falcons vs. Carolina Panthers
11 Nov. 17 Tennessee Titans vs. Green Bay Packers
13 Dec. 1 Las Vegas Raiders vs. Los Angeles Rams
14 Dec. 8 San Francisco 49ers vs. Seattle Seahawks
15 Dec. 15 Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New York Jets
16 Dec. 22 Dallas Cowboys vs. Tennessee Titans
Even though we gave Jacksonville at Jets in Week 15 a red rating – it might actually be a pretty good and important game if the top 2 QBs in the 2021 draft, Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson, step up. And we wouldn’t be shocked if Houston plays tough at home with the Eagles (whose QB Jalen Hurts is from Houston).
A real sneaky good game is December 1 when the most popular team in Los Angeles plays the defending Super Bowl champs (snarky, we know).
This for NBC on Sunday Night. Jimmy Traina of SI.com went gaga for it, but we see some kind of one-sided games that we’ll put in red, freely admitting that QB Aaron Rodgers in Week 3 at Lambeau is interesting no matter who he plays.
NBC will again be the broadcast home of “Sunday Night Football” for the 16th straight season. This year, however, the broadcast team will be Tirico on play-by-play, Collinsworth providing color commentary and Melissa Stark reporting from the sideline.
‘Monday Night Football’ schedule 2022
Week Date Matchup
1 Sept. 8 (Thursday) Buffalo Bills vs. Los Angeles Rams
1 Sept. 11 Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Dallas Cowboys
2 Sept. 18 Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers
3 Sept. 25 San Francisco 49ers vs. Denver Broncos
4 Oct. 2 Kansas City Chiefs vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
5 Oct. 9 Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens
6 Oct. 16 Dallas Cowboys vs. Philadelphia Eagles
7 Oct. 23 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Miami Dolphins
8 Oct. 30 Green Bay Packers vs. Buffalo Bills
9 Nov. 6 Tennessee Titans vs. Kansas City Chiefs
10 Nov. 13 Los Angeles Chargers vs. San Francisco 49ers
11 Nov. 20 Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
12 Nov. 27 Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles
13 Dec. 4 Indianapolis Colts vs. Dallas Cowboys
14 Dec. 11 Kansas City Chiefs vs. Denver Broncos
15 Dec. 18 New England Patriots vs. Las Vegas Raiders
16 Dec. 25 Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Arizona Cardinals
17 Jan. 1 Los Angeles Rams vs. Los Angeles Chargers
18 Jan. 8 TBD
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We note that the Week 1 odds are already up – road teams are the favorites in 10 of 16 games. And, of interest to survivor pools – the Colts are the biggest favorites at 7.5 points at Houston.
Opening NFL Week 1 Odds
DATE MATCHUP/ODDS
Thu. Bills at Rams (-1, 52.5)
Sun. Ravens (-4, 45.5) at Jets
Sun. Saints (-3.5, 42.5) at Falcons
Sun. Patriots at Dolphins (-3, 44.5)
Sun. Giants at Titans (-6.5, 44)
Sun. Steelers at Bengals (-6, 44)
Sun. Colts (-7.5, 45) at Texans
Sun. Browns (-4.5, 43.5) at Panthers
Sun. 49ers (-6, 43) at Bears
Sun. Eagles (-3.5, 47) at Lions
Sun. Jaguars at Commanders (-4.5, 43)
Sun. Packers (1.5, 48) at Vikings
Sun. Raiders at Chargers (-4, 51.5)
Sun. Chiefs (-3, 54) at Cardinals
SNF Buccaneers (-2.5, 52) at Cowboys
MNF Broncos (-3.5, 41.5) at Seahawks
Courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook
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This from Seth Walder of ESPN.com:
Best net rest differential relative to opponents, 2022 regular season:
Bills +13 days
Lions +11
Broncos +9
And worst:
Packers -13 days
Texans -10
Patriots -10
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Cody Benjamin of CBSSports.com on teams that are Winners and Losers from the 2022 schedule:
Mark your calendars, because the complete 2022 NFL schedule has arrived. From a drama-filled Week 1 to an entire slate of special holiday matchups, every month of the 18-week regular-season rundown promises must-see TV. It’s safe to say, however, that some teams are celebrating Thursday’s long-awaited announcements more than others. Let’s dive into some of the clearest winners and losers from the schedule release, projecting which clubs were helped and hurt most by the order of games:
Winner: Vikings
Looking to re-emerge in the NFC North as Aaron Rodgers and the Packers adjust to life without Davante Adams, Minnesota faces none other than A-Rod and Green Bay out of the gate, but at least they get the home crowd behind them for Week 1. Weeks 3-6 leading up to their bye are more than tolerable: vs. Lions, at Saints on a neutral London field, vs. Bears, at Dolphins. And then, after a tough midseason stretch, they host the Patriots on Thanksgiving to kick off a friendly home stretch: vs. Jets after a long week, at Lions, vs. Giants, at Bears. That smells like a wild-card recipe.
Loser: Falcons
And you thought their roster was gonna doom them? Buckle your seat belts. They have a brutal opening stretch: vs. Saints, at Rams, at Seahawks, vs. Browns, at Buccaneers, vs. 49ers, at Bengals. It’s not unthinkable that they could be 1-6 or even 0-7 halfway through Arthur Smith’s second season. On top of that, they don’t get a bye until Week 14. Whether it’s Marcus Mariota or Desmond Ridder under center, it doesn’t get easier at the end, either. Their last four: at Saints, at Ravens, vs. Cardinals, vs. Buccaneers. The saving grace might be if Baltimore and Tampa Bay are resting starters. Even then … yikes.
Winner: Eagles
They were already set up nicely with an NFC East schedule, but they have a pretty sweet start: after visiting the Lions, they host the Vikings for their home debut on “Monday Night Football” (translation: the Linc will be juiced), then go at Washington, vs. Jaguars, at Cardinals, vs. Cowboys in prime time before the bye. It’s not hard to envision a potential 4-2 opening. They’ve got some tough opponents in there, but the final five-game slate adds promise: vs. Titans, at Giants, at Bears, at Cowboys, vs. Saints, vs. Giants. In a close NFC East, a solid performance down the stretch could lift them right back to the playoffs, a la 2021.
Loser: Raiders
Sorry to rain on the Las Vegas hype parade, but just because Derek Carr and Davante Adams should be fun to watch this year doesn’t mean they’ve got an easy path back to the postseason. Check out this five-game start: at Chargers, vs. Cardinals, at Titans, vs. Broncos, at Chiefs. It’s a good thing they have a Week 6 bye to recover; while L.A. and K.C. are electric, the Broncos and Titans may well wear them down physically. Down the stretch, when the NFL cranks up the prime-time spotlight, things get even tougher. From Week 11 on: at Broncos, at Seahawks, vs. Chargers, at Rams on a short week, vs. Patriots, at Steelers, vs. 49ers, vs. Chiefs. They better be getting MVP Derek Carr and not Late-Season Derek Carr here!
Winner: Giants
Who knows if Brian Daboll can win consistently with Daniel Jones, but the calendar is at least inviting a rebound for this franchise. Four of their first six fall at home, and one of the two road games in that span comes on a neutral field in London. They play consecutive home games three different times. And after their nicely positioned Week 9 bye, they get the Texans and Lions before a seven-game stretch that includes five divisional games. They could be the Eagles of 2022: a holdover young QB with a new offensive coach capitalizing on a weak schedule to surprise out of the East.
Loser: Cardinals
You know how Kyler Murray and Kliff Kingsbury tend to start hot before falling off late? They could struggle to reach a mountain from which to tumble this year. After opening vs. Chiefs, at Raiders, vs. Rams, they still have three games without DeAndre Hopkins, two of which are on the road. Then, from Weeks 8-12, they’ve got this: at Vikings, vs. Seahawks, at Rams, vs. 49ers in Mexico, vs. Chargers on a short week. After a late Week 13 bye, three of their final four are road games, and four of their final five opponents are the Broncos, Buccaneers, 49ers and Patriots. That’s not even mentioning their likely tight division race.
Winner: Seahawks
Sure, Russell Wilson could put an immediate damper on their year by trotting back into Seattle in Week 1, but they may benefit from the early reunion more than the Broncos, who are still acclimating to the new QB. Their elite opponents are relatively spread out. They get a bye after their trip to Germany, where they at least get the Buccaneers on a neutral field. And then five of their final seven fall at home. Who knows who will be quarterbacking the Seahawks, but Pete Carroll could help them play spoiler.
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