Bill Barnwell wrote an interesting article about the hurdles the NFL must jump to successfully place a team in London. We don’t know whether the NFL would move an existing team or place an expansion team in London (presumably with the introduction of a second expansion team, likely in Los Angeles, as well). Thirty-four teams is an unwieldy number, so expansion might even bring us to 36 teams (with six teams in three divisions in each conference).

Anecdotally, it seems like most fans are against placing a team in London, or expansion, or change of any kind. For me, the most interesting hurdle to analyze is how to come up with a schedule for a London team. And I think I’ve figured out a decent solution (there are no perfect options). I’m going to use the Buffalo Bills 2013 slate of opponents as a model just because I need to pick some team’s schedule as a model for London’s franchise (I’m going to self-appoint them the Monarchs for purposes of this post). Here are my thoughts:

Week: 1 – Cincinnati Bengals (Home – Friday at 2:30 Eastern)
Week: 2 – Baltimore Ravens (Home)

The big hurdle in creating the schedule is limiting the number of cross-Atlantic trips for the Monarchs.  As a result, you need to bunch together home and road games. And since we want to have the London games in the middle of the season — so we can give the opponents in those games a bye after playing in London — that necessitates a couple of home games early in the year.

The NFL can use the time zone difference to its advantage here, and create a March Madness-style of Friday afternoon fun. On Thursday Night, we have the opener featuring last year’s Super Bowl champion.  And then on Friday afternoon — at 7:30 PM in London — we get another huge event. There would be a Super Bowl-type of atmosphere at the “Week 1 Kickoff Extravaganza” in London on Friday night, and you can be sure that it would get monstrous ratings in England. The NFL doesn’t schedule Friday night games because it doesn’t want to compete with high school football, but the time zone difference works to everyone’s advantage here. The Bengals can fly home after the game and be back in Cincinnati early in the morning on Saturday — which gives them two extra days to prepare for week two.

It also makes sense to have a team that played on Thursday Night in the NFL opener play in London in week two. This year, that would be the Ravens, but it can also be the non-Super Bowl champion appearing in that game.  Baltimore can fly out to London early in the week, using those extra days to help ease some of the travel burden. If they like, the Ravens (or whomever is in the week two slot) can get a Monday Night game in week three.
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