The NFL’s reason for Chiefs’ erratic schedule isn’t a good one

The NFL’s reason for Chiefs’ erratic schedule isn’t a good one

Going into the NFL’s release of its 2024 schedule, fans knew that the Kansas City Chiefs would find themselves in some of the league’s most significant showcases. And that was indeed the case, so much so that the reigning back-to-back world champions have games on every single day of the week except Tuesday.

Shortly after the announcement, NFL broadcast planning vice president Mike North called the Chiefs, “Cowboys-level assets,” perhaps the highest compliment in showing how far the organization has come.

North then recently joined ESPN’s Adam Schefter on his podcast to further discuss the schedule and Kansas City.

“Good teams win, bad teams struggle,” said North. “You could give a team that doesn’t have a great roster, the quote-unquote easiest schedule, and they’re still going to go 4-13. You could give the Kansas City Chiefs the worst possible schedule, and some have been saying we did, right? They’re playing every day of the week except a Tuesday. They’ve got multiple short weeks and catch Buffalo off their bye, and Taylor Swift is gonna be there. Like, we maybe gave the Chiefs the hardest schedule in the league. I suspect they’re gonna be there come playoff time.

“These are the kind of things that we’re trying to think about — not just maximizing viewership, fan interest, and attendance and those kind of things, but what are the truly competitive inequities that we really need to be focused on and really need to avoid? I’m not sure we’ve really found that yet.”

Let’s start here: we’re big fans of North here at Arrowhead Pride.

I love the openness with which he discusses the schedule after its release, and I find his team’s process fascinating. I also acknowledge that creating a fair schedule with the amount of money behind the demand for a team such as the Chiefs is not an easy task.

All that said, this point that simply because the Chiefs will be in the postseason anyway probably shouldn’t be the reason that a club with a Week 6 bye has three games in 11 days nine weeks later — and that’s deemed OK.

In my opinion, with this year’s schedule, the league has reached the absolute end of its limit of balancing fairness and television demand — and, for what it’s worth, I do think North goes on to acknowledge that.

“They’ve been our bell cow for a while, right?” North explained of the Chiefs. “They’re kind of used to carrying our water for some of these unique opportunities here. You think about that Peacock playoff game last year. If you want to make Peacock a destination for an NFL playoff game, well, put a Chiefs game there. If Amazon wants to continue to try to build Black Friday into an event, even though it’s not a national holiday, but can we turn it into one — where instead of going to the mall, we’re gonna stay home and watch a game on television at 3 o’clock in the afternoon? Put a Chiefs game there.

“You want to make Christmas on Netflix a thing? Put a Chiefs game there. You can’t go to that well over and over again. There are only so many Chiefs games and obviously, a lot of other really good teams and good stars and storylines in this league. But the Chiefs definitely were not surprised by their national television windows and some of the windows we decided to use them.”

We know what head coach Andy Reid will say about Kansas City’s erratic schedule: nothing, at least publicly.

And North’s right — the Chiefs will once again be in the playoffs and, likewise, probably once again win their rebuilding division.

But at a certain point, and it may not be Kansas City, a team will lose a game or games because of a disproportionate schedule. And maybe it will cost it the postseason.

I would think that would be something the NFL ought to avoid.