The NFL released the full 2009-2010 NFL schedule Tuesday night. Last year, all of us were excited about how many prime time games the Browns would receive. In fact, it was a topic that made for quite a good discussion.
The buzz factor prior to this year's schedule, in terms of Browns fans, seemed dramatically different. On a scale of 1-10, if last year's anticipation was a 10, this year's might as well have been a 1, because I didn't hear anybody talking about it beforehand. Nonetheless, here is our schedule, which does contain two prime time games:
- Week 1 (9/13): Minnesota (1:00 pm)
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Week 2 (9/20): vs. Denver (4:15 pm)
- Week 3 (9/27): vs. Baltimore (1:00 pm)
- Week 4 (10/4): Cincinnati (1:00 pm)
- Week 5 (10/11): vs. Buffalo (1:00 pm)
- Week 6 (10/18): vs. Pittsburgh (1:00 pm)
- Week 7 (10/25): Green Bay (1:00 pm)
- Week 8 (11/1): vs. Chicago (1:00 pm)
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Week 9: BYE WEEK
- Week 10 (11/16): Baltimore (8:30 pm) [Monday Night]
- Week 11 (11/22): vs. Detroit (1:00 pm)
- Week 12 (11/29): vs. Cincinnati (1:00 pm)
- Week 13 (12/6): San Diego (4:05 pm)
- Week 14 (12/10): Pittsburgh (8:20 pm) [Thursday Night]
- Week 15 (12/20): vs. Kansas City (1:00 pm)
- Week 16 (12/27): Oakland (1:00 pm)
- Week 17 (1/3): Jacksonville (1:00 pm)
Here are some general comments on the schedule:
- Not surprised to see Pittsburgh and Baltimore as our two prime time games. Funny enough, both of those games will be at Cleveland Browns Stadium. That part is a pleasant surprise.
- 4 of our first 6 games are on the road.
- 4 of our last 5 games are at home.
- I like that our division games seem to be a little more spaced out this season. However, it seems like we always play Baltimore in Week 3.
- Our Bye Week comes at just about the half-way point of the season. Can't argue that, eh?
- Our final regular season game is January 3, and at home. Bring on a snow bowl.
- There seem to be a lot more 1:00 games this year, which I prefer at this point.
- We open the season against the Minnesota Vikings. Early impressions? Impossible to tell; for all I know, we could end up gutting our best receiver and a young quarterback from the roster, meaning I can't really have any "win/lose" mentality right now. With that said, it'll be fun to see Adrian Peterson in action I guess -- an early test to see how Eric Mangini's defense compares to Romeo Crennel's against the run.
I wish I could get more excited about the schedule, but all all of these trade rumors are just a little too overwhelming still.