The NFL schedule is coming on Thursday and there are significant changes

For the Minnesota Vikings (and the 31 NFL teams that don’t matter nearly as much as the Minnesota Vikings), the 2023 schedule will be released on Thursday at 7 PM Central time as a part of a prime-time special. Now, there’s a very good chance that, through the miracle of internet leaks, we’ll know the entire schedule before the official release, but there are some significant changes to the scheduling process that fans should be aware of before Thursday’s release.

The biggest change, at least for fans, is that conferences aren’t “married” to a specific network anymore. That means that the Vikings aren’t going to automatically be on FOX most weeks because they’re an NFC team or, more accurately, because they’re hosting an NFC team. Every single game on the schedule is up for grabs. We’ll have to see how things shake out for the Vikings as it pertains to which channel they’re on each week. That alone should make things interesting.

Another change is that, for the first time ever, the NFL will have a game on “Black Friday,” which is the day after Thanksgiving. So, in addition to the Thanksgiving Day tripleheader, there will be an NFL game the next day as well. I’d imagine that it will also take place in prime time but we’ll know for sure when the schedule releases.

When it comes to Christmas weekend, it appears that most of the games will be on Saturday, but there will be a prime-time game on Christmas Eve as well as a triple-header on Christmas Day, which falls on a Monday this year.

Speaking of prime-time games, in a move that surely everyone will love, a team can be made to play twice on Thursday Night Football this season. In addition to that, not every team is guaranteed to play on Thursday night in an effort to (presumably) give the NFL’s new broadcast partner, Amazon, a more appetizing slate of games for their platform. I’m not sure if, or how, the league will balance things out for the teams that might play twice on Thursday nights.

We’ll do our best to bring you the Vikings’ 2023 schedule as soon as we’re able to on Thursday. We’ve known the “who” and the “where” since the 2022 regular season ended, but in a couple of days we’ll officially know the “when” as well.