More NFL/College Schedule Problems Coming

When the NFL added a 17th game to the schedule last season, it didn't just push the Super Bowl back a week into the middle of February.  It created all sorts of additional schedule issues now that, instead of the final games of the season, New Year's weekend is now a regular NFL week, complete with Thursday and Monday night games.  We saw those issues on full display this season, and they're only gonna get worse.

To be fair, the NFL's decision to add a seventh playoff team in each conference two years ago also led to quirky scheduling.  Since they didn't make that decision until the last minute, the schedule for Wild Card Weekend was already set, with the CFP National Championship in its traditional Monday night slot.  As a result, the only way for the NFL to play six games in a weekend was to do tripleheaders on both Saturday and Sunday before introducing the Monday night Wild Card Game last year.

This season, it was the bowl games that had to be adjusted because of the NFL.  There's a Monday night game scheduled in Week 17 now (that fateful Bills-Bengals game), which was played after the Rose Bowl.  Which meant the Sugar Bowl had to be moved from its traditional post-Rose Bowl spot to noon on New Year's Eve, before the two CFP semifinals.

Next season, the exact same problem will exist.  Except it'll be further complicated by the fact that the Rose and Sugar Bowls are the CFP semifinals, so rescheduling the Sugar Bowl isn't possible.  Although, since New Year's Eve is Saturday, not Sunday, that probably means the "Monday" night game will be moved to Saturday night...which is when there's typically an NFL Network game.

NBC, meanwhile, will have its own problems with both Christmas Eve AND New Year's Eve being Sundays.  Sunday Night Football is the highest-rated show on television, but "It's A Wonderful Life" has been a staple of Christmas Eve for years.  They obviously can't show both.  My guess is that we'll get either a double- or tripleheader on Christmas Day, with the NBC game preceding Monday Night Football (they've done this before...I remember when NBC first got the NFL back, Carrie Underwood was dating Tony Romo and the Cowboys played the Eagles at like 5:00 on Christmas in the "Sunday" night game).

They've also struck gold with their Miley Cyrus New Year's Eve special, but Miley may have to take a year off in 2023-24.  Because I don't see them rescheduling Sunday Night Football two weeks in a row, especially if they end up moving the New Year's Day Monday night game to Saturday, which seems likely.  As for how they'll figure out Saturday games on NFL Network, I have no idea.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a Christmas Eve Sunday night game on NFL Network, though.

Moving forward, though, it won't just the years when Christmas and New Year's fall on the weekend that cause a problem.  Once the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams for the 2024 season, the scheduling issues will continue well into January.  And it'll be very interesting to see how they plan on addressing them.

The current schedule for the College Football Playoff actually works perfectly.  The semifinals are either on New Year's Day if they're the Rose and Sugar Bowls or the Saturday before if not.  Then the National Championship Game is the following Monday, the day after the NFL regular season ends, in the Monday Night Football timeslot that the NFL isn't using.

However, when the CFP expands, the plan is to have the first-round games on campus the week before Christmas with the four non-semifinal New Year's Six games hosting the quarterfinals on or around New Year's Day.  That pushes the two semifinals and Championship Game back a week.  My guess is they'll have the Championship Game on Martin Luther King Day.  But the semifinals are the real issue.

Whether New Year's falls on the weekend or not, scheduling the semifinals for a Saturday (which is what seems to be the most likely scenario) will put them head-to-head against significant NFL games.  Last year, they started giving ESPN/ABC a Saturday doubleheader in Week 18.  ESPN also broadcasts the CFP.  Again, that doesn't work.

That's actually not nearly as bad as the possible scheduling nightmare when New Year's is NOT on the weekend.  Then, Saturday semifinals would be on Wild Card Weekend!  ESPN doesn't have a Saturday game during Wild Card Weekend, but that scenario obviously wouldn't work for either the NFL or the CFP.  Let alone fans who want to watch both!  (Although, I'm sure sports bars would love it!)

None of that even takes into consideration the possible issues with stadium availability.  Five of the six CFP bowls are played in NFL stadiums.  Scheduling around the bowl games is easy enough in the regular season (the Falcons even had a home game 12 hours after the Georgia-Ohio State semifinal ended).  In the playoffs, though?  That could cause some major problems!

It's not crazy to imagine the Cowboys hosting a Wild Card Game the same year the Cotton Bowl is a semifinal.  Or the Saints and the Sugar Bowl.  In fact, it seems likely that there'll be an NFL/College Football Playoff stadium conflict at some point.  Fortunately, three of the five stadiums in question have turf fields (which would still require repainting the end zones), but what if it happens in Miami or Arizona?  What would the field quality be like after playing two playoff games on grass with such a short turnaround?

I'm sure they'll find a way to figure all of this out.  They've got more than a year to do it, after all.  I'm just not sure how.  I can't help but think, though, that the whole thing wouldn't be an issue at all had the NFL not added a 17th game and the CFP not expanded from four to 12.