Football Season is Starting

Are you ready for some FOOOOTBAAAAALL?  It’s coming and in Texas there isn’t much that is bigger than Football Season.

Thursday, September 10^th kicks off the first game of the 96^th season of the National Football League (NFL).  Traditionally, the previous season’s Super Bowl winner kicks off the game.  This year the New England Patriots will be hosting the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.  This season will consist of 256 games played out through a 17 week schedule.  Each of the 32 teams in the NFL will play one game a week, totaling 16 games and one bye week.

Thanksgiving Day will be a busy day for football fans.  This is the second season in a row that the American Football Conference (AFC) was shut out of Thanksgiving Day line-up.   The Detroit Lions will host the Philadelphia Eagles in the first game of the day on Fox.  The Dallas Cowboys take the second slot hosting the Carolina Panthers on CBS.  This season will mark the Panthers’ first Thanksgiving Day game.  The final game will be hosted by the Green Bay Packers and they will play against the Chicago Bears during Primetime on NBC.  The Packers will be retiring Brett Favre’s #4 jersey during this game.

The Christmas Eve game will be hosted by the Oakland Raiders.  They will play against the San Diego Chargers at 8:25pm which is only the second night game on Christmas Eve in the history of the NFL.  Usually, the NFL avoids night games on Christmas Eve and moves them to another day of the week.  However, they chose not to move the game this season.

The playoff season begins with the games on January 9^th and 10^th which will be the Wild Card playoff games.  The Conference championships will be on the same day, January 24^th.  The AFC Championship game is scheduled for 3pm on CBS and the NFC Championship game is scheduled for 6:30pm on Fox.

It’s going to a monumental season as well because this year marks the 50^th Super Bowl on February 7^th, which will be hosted at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.  This epic game will be hosted on CBS on the first Sunday in February.  The NFL is changing their branding with this year’s Super Bowl as well.  They were unable to come up with a satisfying branding design for the Roman numeral L for the logo, so they have changed to using the Arabic number 50 to represent this season’s Super Bowl.

Last season was poppin’ with excitement.  The NFL Network named Odell Beckham Jr. the No. 1 breakout wide receiver of the season, catching 91 passes for 1,035 yards and 12 touchdowns in 12 games.  People won’t easily forget that backwards, one-handed catch during the game against the Cowboys in week 12.  Green Bay Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers accepted the MVP award from the NFL Honors Ceremony because of his overall performance throughout the 2014 football season and his abiligy to R-E-L-A-X.  After last season’s uproar, everyone is anticipating how Deflate Gate will affect the coming season.  Are you excited about the coming football season? Which teams do you think will come out on top?