We know exactly who each NFL team will play in 2022.
The mechanics behind the league’s scheduling machine makes that a cut-and-dry affair. Each franchise gets six games against their division rivals, four against a rotating division from the opposite conference, four games against a rotating division from their own conference, two against the teams that finished in the same spot in the divisional standings in their own conference (that aren’t already on the schedule) and one from a cross-conference rival based on the previous year’s standings.
What we don’t know is when those games will take place. Since the NFL equates any kind of downtime with creeping death, the league is taking the opportunity to turn the post-draft lull into a spectacle. The official 2022 schedule will be released Thursday, May 12. The run-up to this non-event event has been dotted with carefully-placed leaks dropping bits and pieces of the upcoming year on football fans.
So far, we know:
- when and where the league’s five international games will take place and who’s playing in them
- who is playing in a Week 2 Monday Night Football doubleheader and where
- end of list (for now!)
That’s not much to go on, but it’s enough to tide us over while the league asks us to hold our breath before revealing a bunch of games most fans won’t realize are taking place until they look at their channel guides on a given Sunday morning. Let’s look at what we’ve got so far — and whether it’s any good.
