Analyst Warren Sharp on the unprecedented unfairness in the NFL schedule

Outbackjack said
What a wussy.
I would guess scheduling 17 games for 32 teams……all with a random bye, it’s more random than anything.

The Jets haven’t won sheet in forever, and they benefit the most, and we’re complaining??

It it was Dallas, SF, NE year after year with huge advantages, ok.

But it’s 1 year, and it’s the Jets, Bears and Wash? They all have sucked forever.

Yeah, not going to get upset about this.

It's not random - it's being heavily programmed. You can only argue the anomalies of randomness in a system that is actually random. There is some computer assistance but a substantial part of the schedule is being prepared by people who are trying to set matchups on a given range of criteria. We know that the league now favors divisional games early in the season (so that early-season games are meaningful) and late in the season (so that the playoff field isn't set until after the final week of the season). We know that the league favors key matchups for important time slots throughout the season including opening week prime time, SNF, the Thanksgiving games, etc.

There are too many of these "interests" being plugged into the schedule determinations to allow for much randomness. That doesn't necessarily mean that each of these results is intended, but unintentional and random aren't the same thing. For example, there are 18 MNF games, meaning there are 36 opponents coming off of MNF - in a league with 32 teams, it's pretty remarkable that one team (Raiders) would have six of 35 chances at an opponent coming off of MNF.