Why Rich No Longer Gets Angry about NFL Schedule Release Leaks

For 17 years at NFL Network, the days leading up to the schedule release made Rich angry. Now he is independent, the schedule is leaking again, and he could not be more relaxed about it.

"Now that I'm no longer an NFL employee and people are leaking the NFL schedule, I don't care," Rich told the room. "Used to piss me off. It really did."

The history is what made him laugh on Monday. NFL Network turned the announcement of paper into a three-hour broadcast event. Scott Hanson once interviewed a hotel concierge in Green Bay about whether the phones were ringing after the Packers schedule dropped. Albert Breer was once dispatched to a sports bar in Washington, D.C. to gauge in-person Commanders fan reaction. The people in the bar mostly wanted to watch the Capitals.

"We were trying to do anything with it," Rich said.

The thing that used to drive him the craziest was the local-team leak. Every year, somebody inside the Giants front office would feed the schedule to Mike Francesca on radio. Rich would arrive at the network with his hair on fire. Now, with the Patriots schedule already out in the wild, he laughed at the absent muscle memory.

"I damn near want to announce it myself," he said. He briefly tried to play schedule-blackout, then admitted he had already seen the leaked Patriots opener at home against the Steelers.

The cast then sussed out what we already know about Week 1. Sunday Night Football is Cowboys at Giants on NBC, which means the Cowboys have now opened on NBC either in the kickoff game or Sunday night 12 times in the last 17 years. TJ took the Cowboys as a confident win. Rich agreed without breaking character as a Cowboys skeptic. Brian Daboll's first game as Giants head coach featuring Jackson Dart and Cam Skattebo on offense, presumably with Malik Nabers back from his knee injury, made the matchup intriguing on the merits.

Caleb Downs gets his career opener in East Rutherford against the team that passed on him. Saquon Barkley's status was open. Mike Del Tufo flagged the meaningful number. The Cowboys have won 11 of their last 12 season-opening matchups.

Week 3 is already known. Ravens at Cowboys in Brazil, at Maracanã Stadium, on CBS in the late window. Rich had previously bungled the stadium name and used the bit to riff that maybe Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will lead a Macarena. TJ projected Dallas at 3-0.

The remaining lock from Rich was the Thursday kickoff. He has been calling Bears at Seahawks for weeks. The reasoning is structural. The Rams and 49ers open in Melbourne on Wednesday. The Patriots play Seattle but the league is not opening with a Super Bowl preview. Cardinals at Seattle isn't a tentpole. Chargers at Seattle would be interesting but not lead-the-season interesting.

"What would have been the NFC Championship Game had the Bears overcome that interception against the Rams," Rich said. "Write it in sharpie."

The schedule drops Thursday. The new Rich, by his own admission, will watch like a fan.