JUNKIES: NFL VP Mike North explains some of how Commanders' schedule came together

Mike North, the NFL’s VP of Broadcast Planning, is definitely NOT Peter North or Jay North, but he WAS on with the Junkies Thursday morning to give a little insight on how the sausage is made when it comes to the NFL schedule!

And after all the general questions about the process, EB specifically wanted to know what the team was interested in from a Commanders standpoint as the new era begins, and how it came to be that the team’s two prime-time games are a Thursday night division rivalry and a random inter-conference Monday nighter?

“Think about it and they really have three with that late Saturday game that you guys have, in the Saturday pool against the Falcons (Week 17),” North said. “The way we kind of look at this schedule and the season is what do the fans care about. Early in the season, they care about storylines, whether it's new faces and new places, new coaches, quarterbacks coming back from injury or being drafted, right? So here's an opportunity early in the season to see if one of these kids who got drafted at the top of the draft, a name we know and watched play for Saturday for years now, can make the transition to the NFL – an early-season storyline game, and then a mid-season division game; we love the division game, and Amazon was thrilled to see an NFC East contest.”

So that covers MNF against Cincy (and another former LSU QB in Joe Burrow) and the required Thursday nighter, but what else went into it all?

“The last five or six weeks of the season, the storylines are out the window, and now, you're talking playoff implications; you are what your record says, as Coach Parcells always said, so down the stretch, that's where flexible scheduling kicks in, and this Saturday TBD pool kicks in,” North said. “For those of us who don't know what's going to happen seven months from now, you've got some wiggle room in the schedule, whether it's flexible scheduling or these TBD games. If a team is playing a game with playoff implications, we've got this opportunity to move it into a bigger window. So, you guys kind of checked every box for us; you got an early-season storyline game, a mid-season division game in prime time, and then you've got one of those late-season flexible games just in case the Crystal Ball didn't predict what your record might be when we get to December.”

Take a listen to North’s entire segment on the schedule above!