NFL and its TV partners paid Pats little mind in making 2021 schedule
BOSTON — The Patriots have dominated headlines all offseason. They came out firing in free agency, adding two tight ends, two wide receivers, and a pass rusher. They drafted quarterback Mac Jones in the first round. They want the world to know that last year’s 7-9 finish was just a blip, and they’re back to take the AFC by storm.
Except, you know who’s not buying it? The NFL and its television partners.
The 2021 schedule, released Wednesday, was unusually indifferent toward the Patriots. A team that always maximizes national TV time slots and gets the benefit of the doubt with bye weeks and December home games finds itself branded an also-ran by the folks who run the league from an entertainment standpoint.
Between 2014-20, the Patriots had 35 national TV games, or five per season. In 2021, despite what appear to be significant upgrades on offense and defense, Bill Belichick’s team only got three national TV games (one each on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday), their fewest since 2011. Fifteen teams have more prime-time games than the Patriots this year.
The Cam Newton-led Patriots, who finished 29th in scoring last season, simply don’t move the needle much. Newton’s big return game to Charlotte to face the Panthers is scheduled for 1 p.m. in Week 9. Two of the Patriots’ three national TV appearances are pity games — Atlanta’s only national game (on a Thursday night), and a Monday nighter at Buffalo for the third year in a row.
For Week 1, CBS put Patriots-Dolphins in a regional window at 4:25 p.m. against Browns-Chiefs in the national slot. The days of Jim Nantz and Tony Romo being regular visitors to Foxborough are over, at least for now.
The Patriots are scheduled for 10 games at 1 p.m., plus two 4 p.m. games that aren’t in the national slot. Last year, that number was eight, and in 2019 just six.
The schedule also conveys the message that the league office and networks don’t seem to have a ton of confidence in the Patriots’ playoff chances.
Mike North, the league’s vice president of broadcast planning, was asked Thursday morning on NFL Network why the Buccaneers-Patriots game was scheduled for Week 4 on “Sunday Night Football.” Almost all of the old Tom Brady-Peyton Manning games were scheduled in November to coincide with TV sweeps and maximize ratings, but Patriots-Buccaneers, which every network had circled as its top choice for 2021, is being played in early October.
Yes, Week 4 is when Brady could pass Drew Brees’s all-time passing yardage record, and it’s possible the NFL wanted to give Brady a chance to do it in Gillette Stadium. But that wasn’t what North said when asked about the game Thursday morning.
“You’re not too far down the road where either of these teams’ season stories is already told,” North explained.
In other words, the networks want this game to have juice, and they don’t know if the Patriots will still have any late in the season. It would be a PR disaster for the Patriots for the whole world to tune into the big Brady-Belichick showdown with the Bucs at, say, 8-2 and the Patriots at 3-5 and going nowhere.
Scheduling this game early in the season is one of two small favors the NFL did for the Patriots this year. The other is giving them a Week 1 home game for the fifth year in a row.
Otherwise, a Patriots team that always seemed to get breaks got very few of them in 2021. They got the latest bye week, Week 14 (Dec. 12). In seven of the previous eight years, the Patriots had a bye between Weeks 8-10, providing a nice break near the midpoint of the season.