The Las Vegas Raiders are one of five teams that do not have a primetime appearance on the NFL schedule that was announced Thursday.
That doesn’t mean they won’t find themselves featured prominently on national television this season.
“That’s what flexible scheduling is for,” NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning Mike North said on a Friday morning conference call. “That’s why we put it in and why we work with our partners every year to ensure the teams that have played their way into bigger television windows have an opportunity to be rewarded when we get into November and December.”
The Raiders, who are coming off a 3-14 record but appear to be trending in a positive direction moving forward after a strong offseason, also do not have an international game this season and will have the longest drought in the league without an appearance outside the United States by the time the season ends.
It’s possible the original schedule would have looked different had there been more certainty about the Raiders’ quarterback situation.
North did not say the Raiders would have been placed in a primetime slot had they already announced No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza as the starting quarterback, but did acknowledge that kind of information is potentially helpful to the league’s schedulemakers and its broadcast partners.
“Nobody knows if or when Mendoza might play,” he said. “It’s certainly something where it would be great if we knew. We don’t.”
The Raiders added veteran Kirk Cousins as the potential bridge starter until Mendoza is ready, whether that be Week 1, later in the season or in 2027.
While he may be more ready to take on the starting role for now, he also may not be quite as appealing to the national audience as a shiny object like Mendoza.
“They went out and signed a very competent veteran quarterback and if they find themselves hovering around .500 and playoff relevant in the middle of the season, they might be a little reluctant to pull the trigger and move to the rookie,” North said. “And if they are playoff relevant, they will find themselves flexed into bigger national television windows whether it’s Sunday night or Monday night or just a bigger footprint on a Sunday afternoon.”
North compared the situation to the one the Tennessee Titans were in last year.
“They drafted No. 1 overall and took a quarterback (Cam Ward) who sure looks like he can play in this league, and they didn’t happen to get a national television appearance last year either,” he said. “Not to be flip, but we don’t draft our way into primetime. We play our way into primetime.”
Sunday afternoon games can be flexed into the Sunday Night Football spot on NBC beginning in Week 5. Games can only be moved into Monday or Thursday slots beginning in Week 12 and 13 respectively.
“The crystal ball isn’t always as clear as we hoped,” North said. “Sometimes the teams we thought would be competitive are not and quarterbacks get hurt. It’s an even steven league. It’s a zero-sum project. Anybody who’s down just means somebody else is up. That’s what flex is for. That’s what the late season opportunity to move games around are for.
“And we’re not losing sight of the fact that Sunday afternoons are still critically important to the league. There are still 30 or 35 million fans massing at 1 p.m. Eastern on a Sunday afternoon.”
The league requirement for every team to be placed in at least one primetime slot went away several years ago.
This year, the Raiders are joined by the Jets, Titans, Cardinals and Dolphins as teams with no primetime appearances on the original schedule.
“The truth is, it’s not just about primetime,” North said. “I know there was a lot of chatter about how many primetime appearances did this team get and why didn’t we get more?
“It’s also about the 4:25 p.m. national television window, which is still our most-watched window. So maybe you didn’t get as many primes as you wanted, but a couple 4:25 windows are still going to be maybe more widely viewed than any primetime game.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.
