NFL announces 2023 regular season schedule will be released Thursday, May 11

The NFL knows how to market an event, the 2023 NFL Draft as a perfect example, and they have turned the annual regular season schedule release to be just that — an event.

It had been reported the NFL schedule would be released this Thursday, May 11, and even after it was reported there was a chance the schedule release gets pushed back, the league announced Monday evening the schedule released would be happening as schedudled.

This from the NFL Media Twitter feed:

So, what were some of the potential pitfalls of not having the schedule released on time?

According to Peter King, the list would include:

• Various “mega games”
• Week 1 prime time games
• Thanksgiving Day
• Black Friday
• Sunday night game on Christmas Eve
• Monday night triple header on Christmas Day

Of course, the NFL had to wait on some moves to be made before they could move forward with scheduling these big-time games. For instance, the Aaron Rodgers trade from the Green Bay Packers to the New York Jets certainly changes the way the league views both teams. Likewise, Lamar Jackson finally signing with the Baltimore Ravens certainly changes the way the league views the Ravens and their potential opponents in 2023.

With the schedule slated to be released Thursday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter pointed out some very important aspects of this year’s release:

For those who can’t see Schefter’s tweet, he lists the following:

• The NFL’s first-ever Black Friday game
• Games are no longer able to be protected by networks, making all games “free agent games”
• Teams can be on Thursday Night Football twice in one season
• Not all teams are guaranteed to have a prime time game

With the release official, get ready for NFL teams’ social media teams to be going all-in on content this week. And for the fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers, we’ll have everything for you right here at BTSC, so stay tuned.