The 2014 schedule consists of 256 regular-season games. The first one will be played on the Thursday after Labor Day in Seattle.
Later today, we’ll know which of the eight teams to visit CenturyLink Field this season will be there on the night they raise the championship banner. The options are the 49ers, Rams, Cardinals, Cowboys, Giants, Broncos, Raiders, and Packers.
If it’s the 49ers, then the 49ers won’t be opening that swanky new stadium in Santa Clara until Week Two. And the NFL would be giving up one of the truly marquee games of the season right out of the gates.
Typically, the defending champion doesn’t open the season against a division rival. A Super Bowl rematch makes sense, but given the outcome of the Super Bowl maybe it doesn’t. The Cowboys always draw a crowd on TV, but the Cowboys have taken a step backward this offseason.
That’s why I continue to think it’ll be a rematch of 2012’s Fail Mary game, with the Packers coming to town for a playoff game that has seemed inevitable the last two years, but that hasn’t happened. It’ll happen this season -- and it could happen on the first Thursday of the season.
Here’s where you say what you think, as we re-post the poll that first appeared while the confetti was still in the air at MetLife Stadium.
[polldaddy poll=7767964]