Changes

Teams play 16 regular season games (eight at home and eight on the road) over 17 weeks, with each team receiving a "bye" week roughly in the middle of the season, comprised of:

Teams play 16 regular season games (eight at home and eight on the road) over 17 weeks, with each team receiving a "bye" week roughly in the middle of the season, comprised of:

*Six games in a home-and-home against the other three teams in its division (the 17th week of the season features only divisional matchups),

*Six games in a home-and-home against the other three teams in its division (the 17th week of the season features only divisional matchups),

*Six games against other conference opponents (two from each of the other conference divisions; over a six-year period every team will play every other conference opponent home-and-home), and

*Four teams against all the opponents of a designated division from the other conference,

*Four teams against all the opponents of a designated division from the other conference (over an eight-year period, every team will play every other team in the other conference home-and-home).

*Four teams against all the opponents of a designated division from the same conference, and

*Two games against conference opponents of the non-designated division for that year; the teams will be those which finished in the same place in the standings.

As an example, the [[Green Bay Packers]] finished first in the NFC North after the 2020 season.  They will therefore play the following teams during the 2021 season:

*All four teams from the AFC North ([[Baltimore Ravens|Baltimore]] [[Cincinnati Bengals|Cincinnati]], [[Cleveland Browns|Cleveland]] and [[Pittsburgh Steelers|Pittsburgh]], which is their designated inter-conference division for that year,

*All four teams from the NFC West ([[Arizona Cardinals|Arizona]] [[Los Angeles Rams]], [[San Francisco 49ers|San Francisco]] and [[Seattle Seahawks|Seattle]], which is their designated intra-conference division for that year, and

*The other teams from the NFC (besides the West) which also finished first in their divisions: that would be [[New Orleans Saints|New Orleans]] (NFC South) and [[Washington Football Team|Washington]] (NFC East).

The season generally begins on the Thursday after [[Labor Day]] and concludes the week after [[Christmas]].  Most games are played on Sunday, with one or more games played on Monday and on Thursday as well.  Games are not played on Friday or Saturday during most of the season due to federal laws prohibiting NFL games competing with high school or college games; the league will play some Saturday games once the college football season ends and has very rarely played on Friday.

The season generally begins on the Thursday after [[Labor Day]] and concludes the week after [[Christmas]].  Most games are played on Sunday, with one or more games played on Monday and on Thursday as well.  Games are not played on Friday or Saturday during most of the season due to federal laws prohibiting NFL games competing with high school or college games; the league will play some Saturday games once the college football season ends and has very rarely played on Friday.