NFL Schedule Release Special Pt 1: Big Picture

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We are those guys, we hope to be your guys, bringing you the latest from the National Football League, which, again, in the middle of the NBA playoffs, Stanley Cup playoffs, your Denver Nuggets, Nick making a statement, my Boston Celtics doing one better.

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However, the NFL, they did it again.

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365 day a year, new cycle.

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And Wednesday was the, uh, Schedule release.

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Uh, I'm going to tease Nick before we split early because I'm going to ask you about your favorite schedule release video now that that's become such a big deal.

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But in addition to just seeing the, the, the names on the calendar and knowing what your team is up against, uh, I, I just have to say for, for Nick Ferguson, our, our former NFL safety.

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How big of a deal is seeing when you're going to play certain teams on the schedule? Alex is huge, man, because when that schedule comes out, like you said, let me back up for just a second.

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Please.

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Like you said, we all knew the teams that were going to be playing.

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But we didn't know the dates and we didn't know the time.

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And that is a huge factor, knowing how many primetime games you're gonna have.

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If you are a West Coast team, how many East Coast games are you gonna have? Like the Broncos have two back to back on the road.

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Bucks then against the New York Jets.

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And it's all you're thinking about, oh, will they stay in Tampa for that game? Will they fly back? And there's so many things that go in playing into playing those East coast games, because your body.

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Is waking up and by the time it wakes up, guess what? It's halftime and the game could be over.

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So it's all important to know when you're going to play certain teams.

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The first thing I always look at is, do we have Buffalo and Green Bay on our schedule? And if we do, you want them earlier in the season opposed to later.

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And the most important, When the hell is the bye week, right? Like, right now, the Broncos have their bye week sitting at week 14.

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You know how many games you have to go through before that? That's Monday night.

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And that's Thursday night football, your body could be so beat up by that time.

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So this schedule, and once again, give it to the NFL for finding a way to do it so much better than other leagues to make the schedule release, I think.

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So, you know, your Broncos, for an example.

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Right.

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Like the, the, all, all those are excellent points, right? You, you know who the teams are going to be, but if you're going to the frozen tundra at Lambeau field, or you're stuck going to new England or Orchard Park, New York to play Buffalo, you want that earlier in the year.

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And certainly the Miami dolphins, I think know better than anybody having to go to cold weather games.

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Later on in the season, uh, when it comes to those bye weeks, I sort of noticed like a boomerang kind of effect, right? Where your Broncos have to wait until week 14.

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They were a week 9 bye, nice and easy last year, whereas the Kansas City Chiefs are reigning two time Super Bowl back to back champions.

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You know, they are on a week 6 bye this year, but this, of course, coming after they took that late bye after going to Munich to play the Miami Dolphins.

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So it's just You know, the, like, knowing that it is ultimately A handful of people who are now doing the rounds in media, patting themselves on the back.

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What a great job that they did.

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Uh, it's just a handful of people that ultimately put this schedule together.

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You can lean and sort of see some of the biases, um, that are, are, are kind of out there in the public.

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I know this time a year ago, it was kind of head scratching to see the Kansas City Chiefs.

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hosting the Detroit Lions.

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They were making a gamble on a team that had played really well, uh, in a game that didn't matter to them, but they could knock out the Green Bay Packers at the end of the 2022 season.

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And look what happened.

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The Lions got that upset victory and it propelled them to their first NFC championship appearance in over 30 years.

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So while I say that it's hard to do, I have to give credit to the schedule makers that kind of had that premonition with the Detroit Lions from a year ago.

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And just like that, you can kind of see, even in week one with the types of, you know, Chiefs and Ravens, the first.

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Championship game rematch to open a season since 2010, which you think it's the low hanging fruit, you'd see it more often, but kudos to them on making it the MVP versus the two time Super Bowl champs.

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And then the biggest one, I think would be Monday night.

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I, I honestly thought that we would just do a redo of the Jets and the bills, but instead, Aaron Rogers and the Jets their first.

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of six primetime games in 11 weeks are up against the San Francisco 49ers.

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The Bay Area kid comes home.

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So whether it's week one, whether it's certain, uh, primetime events, just the raw stats, Nick, the Niners, the Cowboys and the Jets have, uh, six primetime games each.

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Whereas the Carolina Panthers are the lone team that don't play a single primetime game, not even a Thursday.

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And the Colts, Patriots, Cardinals, and Titans have won a piece.

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Anything that steps out to you either in week one or talking about which teams are kind of getting some shine coming into 2024.

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Well, we know the schedule makers, just like the odds makers, they look at the matchups, right? That's the biggest draw, especially in this, uh, streaming era that we find ourselves.

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Oh, we'll get to that.

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We'll get to that.

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So the idea is what games will draw the biggest odds? And it's odd that you mentioned the New York Jets because I think it's, uh, if I'm not mistaken, it's the Jets and the 49ers in Dallas.

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They all have six primetime games apiece.

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Correct.

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Here's the interesting part about that Jets matchup.

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Last year, it was so much hype build up around the Jets and Aaron Rodgers in the offseason.

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We couldn't wait for that game.

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I mean, he's running out there with the flag.

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For plays into it, his season is over.

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So the great thing about it if you are a Jets fan, is that Aaron Rogers is back, but he's going back to the Bay Area and you don't have the start this season at MetLife Stadium, which I might add.

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Several players have gone through that N-F-O-P-A kind of survey saying that they hated playing.

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Stadium.

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So that is something if you're a Jet fan, you're happy about that.

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Aaron Rodgers could survive his first game leading to maybe him playing and six other games.

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But, uh, for me, when I look at week one, he brought it up as far as the Chiefs in Baltimore.

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Once again, it's not some fallacy.

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These two teams are playing again.

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You have Patrick Mahomes off another Super Bowl victory.

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Lamar Jackson, last year when we saw him, when these two teams faced off, he was right there on the precipice.

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One reception turning a different way and kind of getting themselves into the end zone.

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It means a lot of things as far as who advances to the Super Bowl, but I'll put it this way.

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Yeah, it's a great matchup to start off the season, but Baltimore has added some pieces.

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So is Kansas city.

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So awesome.

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They've both lost big pieces too.

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So if, if, if Baltimore wants to win this game, which I will go out on a limb right now and predict because Derrick Henry is there and struggles with a big physical running backs, it's not going to change anything in the grand scheme of the conversation, because Kansas city.

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We'll still be on the throne until someone knocks them off.

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But it's a great way for the league to start the season.

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Well, they also are allowed to go five and five in the middle of the season and then win out.

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So especially for a team coming off of a Super Bowl victory or a Super Bowl hangover like the 49ers, 17 games may seem short, but it really matters how you play at the end of the year.

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And if it takes time to get.

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Certain teams settled in and I mean, six first round rookie quarterbacks, a lot of them are going to see action later on in the year.

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It's going to take time to really figure out these teams and to say, I like the Baltimore Ravens to win right now.

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Oh, Nick, the Chiefs are favored by three as of today in the month of May.

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We don't, we don't have to put our money down just yet.

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Um, and, and that's sort of bringing me to my biggest complaint about the schedule release.

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We know, based on common opponents, when talking about strength of schedule.

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But the thing that drives me absolutely crazy, Is when you have smart, intelligent football people using 2023 overall records in the regular season to weigh strength of schedule because a certain team won 12 games like the Dallas Cowboys last year doesn't account for, uh, the losses in free agency that the loss of Dan Quinn, their defensive coordinator, it just, it's nonsense.

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And so until we have Some proof in the pudding and games being played from here on out when we're talking about strength, the schedule leading up to the season, I think the closest metric we can use is, uh, Vegas is wind total because it's a, it's a much more accurate number that takes into account what happened in the off season and in the draft compared to looking just at a snapshot of the 2023 regular season.

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So I say that to point out that we have.

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What are, according to Vegas, easy schedules and hard schedules.

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By and large, across the board, the Atlanta Falcons playing in that NFC South with that second place division, uh, record, have the easiest schedule according to overall win total for their opponents.

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They have the addition of Kirk Cousins.

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It's hard to believe that a team like Atlanta Couldn't be favorited in a bunch of their games, but that doesn't necessarily translate to automatic wins.

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You just can't do that in the month of May.

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Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I want to dive into their schedule, by and large, the most difficult schedule, followed by the Patriots, the Browns, the Ravens, and the Vikings.

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So, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Nick, This was, I think, you know, of all of the 32 schedules and we can't really go over every single one of them, but this has pointed out to me, they don't play a division game until week 11.

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They get the Baltimore Ravens at home week 11 after their bye, after they play your Denver Broncos, after their West coast trip to, uh, um, to Vegas.

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It's baffling.

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Week 11, they get Baltimore.

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And the rest of the way, six division games, on the road against the Eagles, at home against the Chiefs.

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That is murderer's row for a team with two new quarterbacks, which means you have none, and a brand new offensive coordinator.

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Yes, we've got the Arthur Smith Atlanta reunion in week one, but To finish out that schedule, playing your division rivals, plus the reigning Super Bowl champs, and a team that was in the Super Bowl just two seasons ago, you know, Mike Tomlin, I'm not calling it, but that, that, you know, that winning wreck, that winning percentage streak is, is, it's, it's hard to kind of picture looking at the schedule, Nick.

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Yeah, it makes you wonder what were the schedule makers really thinking about when they put this together.

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They're burying your guy, Russell Wilson.

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That's the problem here.

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I don't know if they sat down collectively as a group or they put it through some AI machine to come to figure this out.

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But just to think about the Steelers in the division that they're in, and you mentioned, Three other teams, or two other teams, excuse me, in the same division that they're in that have tough schedules.

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So what this means is that, hey listen, by week 11, some of your marquee players that you depended on to kind of get you to the playoffs, those guys could be banged up, right? You know how the NFL works.

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So that puts the Pittsburgh Steelers in a very tight spot as they're trying to get Seating for the playoffs because the back half of your season now becomes so vital because every game you're playing, but most of those games, you're playing against a division competition.

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So you can't afford to drop a game at any point.

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If you hope to make the playoffs.

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Now, here's a great thing about the position if there is for Mike Tomlin and Arthur Smith.

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You have Russell Wilson and Justin Fields and most teams put a lot of value on that starting quarterback and very little on that backup quarterback.

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This could be a situation from this particular standpoint that can help them because let's just say if Russ starts out and then Russ experienced some issues you have Justin Fields who's a younger version of Russell and has a similar skill set that can come in and potentially lead your team.

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Or if you went vice versa, you get a veteran quarterback in Russell later on week 11, week nine, who wasn't a start at the beginning of season.

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I'm giving you both scenarios.

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But if he can come in week 9, week 10, now you start playing division competition week 11, and he can show that he can win in that tough division, he now solidifies himself, if not with the Pittsburgh Steelers, with someone else as a viable starter.

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So there are pros and cons to this when you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, but the odds makers did put them in a very difficult situation.

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Absolutely.

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And on the other hand, the Atlanta Falcons, who I mentioned previously, you know, once they get their first four games out of the way, it becomes kind of a clear path just to take care of your division opponents, and it would make it a pretty favorable schedule for them moving forward.

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So, a little on, you know, some of the hard schedules, some of the easier schedules.

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Uh, travel is always a good one, right? Because I looked at the LA Chargers in particular, and according to the Vegas wind totals, the second easiest schedule, they've got that fourth place schedule finishing last in the AFC West, and on top of that, you've got, um, you know, some, some ability for them to improve under Jim Harbaugh.

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And.

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The additions that they've made this offseason despite losing key pieces on the offense.

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So I think it's an easy schedule, but what you don't account for is they travel overseas.

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They have multiple East Coast trips.

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They have the most mileage of any team according to Bill Spiros of bookies.

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com where they fly 26, 000 miles to play their 17 games across 36 time zones, which also leads the NFL compared to a team like Washington.

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Who, again, the NFC East is geographically close to one another.

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They only travel 10, 550 miles.

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So you're talking about more than two and a half times the travel one NFL team has than the other.

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Which, from your perspective, Nick, absolutely must weigh on you as a player trying to play at your best.

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Yeah, it does.

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Because players have routines.

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And when you start to travel, and it all depends on your coach, And what they want to do.

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I know, like, usually when I played for Mike Shanahan, we would fly out maybe that Saturday, right? So you just have to get as acclimated as you could and, you know, maybe 24 hours.

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But coaching with the San Francisco 49ers with Kyle Shanahan, his son, the idea was if we're going to take an East Coast trip, You want to travel out there maybe that Friday, have a practice that Saturday, and also you're waking up close to the time that guys are going to be waking up to play the game.

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So these are some, some of the parameters that coaches have to deal with when they're trying to look at the schedule and best, best put the players in position to succeed.

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But this is why those East Coast games can be so brutal and they favor, of course, Obviously the home team because you've been playing in that time zone for a lengthy period of time.

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That's why I always wonder.

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When we look at certain teams and they say, well, they have a large amount of East Coast games.

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And I think if I'm not mistaken, last year, when you look at the jet schedule, even though they on the East Coast, a lot of their games were, were not in their favor based on time zone.

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You have to think.

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Is someone sitting in Park Avenue looking at the list going, yep, I like this team, great quarterback, great quarterback.

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Oh, you know what? Yeah, we're going to find a way to see if this team is really about it.

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Okay.

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By giving them, you know, some East Coast or in this case, Your East coast team being forced to play in the West coast.

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It's kind of chaotic the way they come up with these things, but it's always tough, man.

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If you're a West coast team, you have multiple trips to the East coast.

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That's the toughest.

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Yeah.

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You always see the Seattle Seahawks up there.

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The 49ers as well.

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Miami dolphins, new England Patriots running out the top five, each of them with international trips themselves.

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Um, let's see.

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I will talk about our two Superbowl.

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Competitors this past season in 2023, before we get on to Nick, before we split Nick Ferguson, you want to start with the Niners or the Chiefs here? Uh, let's start with the Niners.

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So the San Francisco 49ers lead the NFL.

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They have four opponents that come off bi weeks.

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Your thoughts.

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Wow, that's really tough because usually coming off of those bye weeks, it gives those coordinators on both sides of the ball to come up with creative ideas to toss out against that week's opponent.

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So, it is kind of, you look at it and say maybe it's a little unfair for the San Francisco 49ers to play four teams coming off of a bye.

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It gives those teams also an opportunity.

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The one thing I don't know, cause I don't have the schedule right in front of me.

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I got you.

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Oh, you have the schedule right in front of you? So week eight, sorry, week seven, the chiefs come off their week six by for the Superbowl rematch the following week, eight, they're playing against the Dallas Cowboys off their by week 11.

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The division rival Seahawks off there by week 13 at Buffalo.

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Oh, sorry.

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At home against Buffalo, the bills are coming off there by four playoff teams or three playoff teams.

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Plus the division rival from last year.

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Well, listen, there are pros and cons to every situation.

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So because those teams are coming off a buy, they have the advantage of preparation.

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Also, getting the players healed up, but here's where the momentum factor might benefit the San Francisco 49ers because when you go on a buy, you go away from the team.

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You try to get your mind right.

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And sometimes you end up going on a trip.

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And you're not really kind of groove back into football.

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So the idea is that 49ers in that four games, you know, slate, they're still grinding.

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They're still in that momentum type of window and you can catch a team slipping, right? They think that we're well rested, we're well prepared, but this team still is carrying the momentum.

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That's the biggest part.

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And that's where Kyle Shanahan is going to have to keep his guys pretty much engaged to say, look, we have a four game track here.

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We're playing against teams that are coming off a buy.

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We can use that momentum and the fact that we are still playing week to week.

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Against that team.

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And sometimes we've seen it.

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We've seen team play great coming off a buy, but we've seen a lot of teams play horrible coming off the buy.

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Uh, luckily they don't draw well, Andy Reed, of course, with the Chiefs 28 and three shout out Atlanta Falcons, uh, when coming off the buy and their opponent isn't on a buy.

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And meanwhile, there are 12 teams that don't play opponents coming off a buy when they themselves aren't on a buy either.

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So I thought that was kind of fascinating where the 49ers get the short end of that stick.

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And then with the Kansas city chiefs, and this gets us to the streaming conversation, because with Netflix now on the fold and a double header for Wednesday, Christmas days, the current, the Kansas city chiefs play on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, six days a week for the Kansas city chiefs and.

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I know this is a lot to add in.

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Week 11, when they are at Buffalo, Week 11, they're at Buffalo, happens to fall on the same weekend where Taylor Swift is performing in New York.

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So, the schedule makers have confirmed they considered Taylor Swift when doing the Chief's schedule.

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Meanwhile, we can see the Kansas City Chiefs on six out of seven days This NFL season, Nick.

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Once again, man, a lot of this stuff that is happening with the schedule, it's not by chance.

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I mean, last year there was a boost in ratings.

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And I guess apparel for the league and for the Kansas City Chiefs all because of the Swifties.

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And I can help just like every other American watching Sunday night football and the cameras of Mike Tirico constantly going back to Taylor Swift.

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I'm like, look, I enjoy her music, but I came to watch the game.

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So can we get back to the game? So the league paid attention.

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To, you know, how she has been able to draw her audience in.

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And obviously when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, she kissed Travis Kelsey, and I'm sure all the hearts on Park Avenue just melted because they thought we have a profitable thing right in front of us and all we have to do is shoot camera one to the box.

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That's right.

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It's, it is by, I guess I would say.

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The hand of the odds makers that you have so many Chiefs games throughout the weeks because they want to try to capitalize all of that.

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And most importantly, when you think about the streaming services, when you slap those Kansas City games on either Peacock, Amazon, Netflix, whatever.

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People may not have those streaming services, but guess what? They want to tune in and see what's going to happen.

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They might not even like Kansas City or Teleswift.

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They just want to be in the know.

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So on that Monday or Tuesday or whatever it is, they can talk about how much they hated it.

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Well, he's Nick Ferguson.

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I'm Alex Hardy.

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And before we split, Nick, we got to see 32 teams show us their stuff.

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With schedule release videos, I'm sure you were on Twitter hitting refresh until 8pm Eastern, 5 Pacific, 6 Mountain Time where you were, uh, just hyped, ready to go to see what your team, your Denver Broncos were up to.

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Name dropping with Lewis Hamilton was pretty great.

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But Nick, before we split your favorite schedule release video, and please, I hope it's good Jules hunting.

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No, it's not good Jules hunting, which, uh, that one was, uh, pretty good.

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I think once again, the schedule release are so fascinating and teams are getting into these kind of like, uh, almost like baby reveal types of things, but I thought it was the fact, I think it might've been the chargers.

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Who had a skew number or whatever.

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And when you clicked on it, it was something like, it was like they were trolling the Raiders.

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Oh, the whole time.

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So I, you know, before, before I fell in love with sports, I was in love with playing the Sims.

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Are you kidding me? Hours and hours.

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And the trick, taking the ladder out of the pool.

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So the Sims were stuck in, I mean, clearly that was made with delicate attention to, uh, shout out their social team that, uh, knew everything, the ins and outs of that game.

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But yes, you would click on the Chargers website.

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It said, Raiders fans click here.

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And it was an application to fill out for the World Clown Association.

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Because the Raiders are a bunch of clowns, according to LA.

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Even though they suffered that, what, 63 7 loss.

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But again, that's last year.

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This is today.

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this year.

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So shout out the LA Chargers who I think two years in a row probably did the best.

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Um, I mentioned 28 to 3, so something good the Falcons did.

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They did the NFL Street Schedule release, which another, I mean there's a common thread here.

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Video games for me is definitely a win.

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So, uh, any others before we get on out of here, Nick? You know, if I'm not mistaken, there was one about the Chiefs kicker and he was being trolled based on what he said at the commencement speech.

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Yeah, Chargers, Chargers got him there too.

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It's like, man, like, I understand doing certain things, then other things are, you may take it too far.

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There are layers to it.

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Yeah, and it makes me think like.

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I mean, scheduled release and trolling other teams, that's great, fine and dandy, but I can't help but think, when those two teams match up, somehow that is going to be showed by Andy Reid, so they can actually stick it to Jim Harbaugh and his charges even more.

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Well, I'm shocked that I didn't hear anything about the Jacksonville Jaguars from you, that did an X Men scheduled release based off the I didn't see that one! Yeah, so same animation like the 97 video, but of course the Jags came in the NFL 95.

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So it's just Jags 95 and they've got all the animation that a comic book guy like you, Nick, would love.

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He's Nick Ferguson.

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I'm Alex Hardy.

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We are those guys.

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We hope to be your guys.

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Make sure to keep it locked here.

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We talk about actual football, not just names going on a sheet of paper, uh, with the schedule release.

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Uh, you can follow us, uh, Apple podcasts, wherever you got your podcasts and YouTube.

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Uh, through Ride the Wave Media.

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So Nick, what do you have to say for the people? Let's get on out of here.

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Hey, great job NFL on the schedule as usual.

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I hope, uh, your fantasy team does well this year.

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Uh, I know my fantasy team did well last year.

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So, hey, go NFL.

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Hey, Nick, I got you.

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I can tell you the indoor matchups for week 17 for that fantasy championship.

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Ooh, okay.

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Ooh, got you.

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Got you.