2017 NFL season

The 2017 NFL season, the 98th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL), will begin on Thursday September 7, 2017 with the defending Super Bowl LI champion hosting an as of yet determined team in the NFL Kickoff Game. The season will conclude with Super Bowl LII, the league's championship game, on Sunday February 4, 2018 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Player movements and retirements

The 2017 NFL League year will begin on March 9, 2017 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

Draft

The 2017 NFL Draft will be held on April 27–April 29, 2017 in Philadelphia.

Preseason

Training camps for the 2017 season will be held in late July through August. Teams will start training camp no earlier than 15 days before the team's first scheduled preseason game.

Prior to the start of the regular season, each team will play four preseason exhibition games, beginning on Thursday August 10. The preseason will begin on the evening of Sunday August 6 with the 2017 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game which will be televised nationally on NBC. The 64-game preseason schedule will end on Thursday August 31.

Regular Season

The 2017 regular season features 256 games will be played out over a seventeen-week schedule which will begin on Thursday September 7. Each of the league's 32 teams play a 16-game schedule, with one bye week for each team. The slate also features games on Monday Night. They are games played on Thursday, including National Football League Kickoff game in prime time on September 7 and games on Thanksgiving Day. The regular season will conclude with a full slate of 16 games on Sunday December 31, all of which will be intra–division matchups, as it has been since 2010.

Scheduling Formula

Under the NFL's current scheduling formula, each team plays each other three times in their own division twice. In addition a team plays against four teams in one other division from each conference the final two games on a team's schedule are againist the two team's in the team's own conference in the divisions the team was not set to play who finished the previous season in the same rank in their division (e.g. the team which finished first in its division the previous season would play each other teamin their conference that also finished first in its respective division). The pre-set division parings for 2017 will be as follows.

Highlights of the 2017 schedule include:

• NFL Kickoff Game: The 2017 season will begin with the Kickoff Game on Thursday, September 7 at 8:30 p.m. EDT. The game will feature the Super Bowl LI champion, likely as the home team. The game will be televised on NBC.
• International Series: At least three games will be played internationally this season. The Miami Dolphins will host the New Orleans Saints. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Rams will each host international games, with the Jaguars hosting a game at Wembley Stadium (possibly the Baltimore Ravens^[1]) for the fifth straight season. The locations for other international games and the dates of all games will be released ahead of the full NFL schedule.
• Thanksgiving Day:As has been the case since 2006, three games will be played on Thursday, November 23. The Detroit Lions will host an opponent to be announced at 12:30 p.m. EST on Fox. The 4:30 p.m. EST game will feature the Dallas Cowboys on CBS. The 8:30 p.m. EST game will feature two opponents to be announced later on NBC.
• Christmas games: Christmas Day, December 25, falls on a Monday in 2017. When this most recently occurred in 2006, the Sunday afternoon games were played as regularly scheduled on Christmas Eve. The Sunday Night Football game was moved to Monday, Christmas Day, at 4:30 p.m. EST on NBC. The Christmas Night game was played in its normal 8:30 pm EST slot on ESPN Monday Night Football. The league has yet to announce what it will do in 2017.
• New Year's Eve games: The NFL will play a full slate of 16 games on Sunday, December 31, to conclude the regular season. The College football bowl games usually scheduled for New Years' Eve will instead be played on Saturday, December 30 (as is always the case when December 31 is a Sunday), and the College Football Playoff semi-finals will be played on on Monday January 1, 2018.

The entire schedule will be released in April 2017.

Postseason

The 2017 Playoffs will begin with the Wild Card playoff round the weekend of January 6–7, 2018. The winners of each of the games will visit the top two seeded teams in each conference in the Divisional Round games, which will then be played on the weekend of January 13–14, 2018. The winners of those games will advance to the Conference Championship game, which will be held on January 21, 2018 with the AFC Championship Game at 3:05pm ET on CBS and the NFC Championship Game at 6:40pm ET on Fox. The 2018 Pro Bowl will be held on January 28, 2018 and air on ESPN. Super Bowl LII will be held on February 4, 2018 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on NBC.

Media

This is the fourth season under broadcast contracts with ESPN, CBS, Fox, and NBC. This includes "cross-flexing" (switching) Sunday Afternoon games between CBS and Fox before or during the season (regardless of the conference of the visiting team). NBC will continue to air Sunday Night Football, the annual Kickoff game, and the primetime Thanksgiving game. ESPN will continue to air Monday Night Football and the Pro Bowl. NBC will also serve as the broadcaster of Super Bowl LII. This will also be the second and final year of the current Thursday Night Football contract with CBS, NBC, NFL Network, and Twitter

Stadiums

This will be the Atlanta Falcons' inaugural season at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, after playing in the Georgia Dome during the previous 25 seasons.

References

External Links