This issue is a little different than my previous issues. There's no technical portion, it's all purely about the fun of sports. It's been a rough few weeks at work, and so I wanted to focus on something a little more fun & light-hearted. I hope you enjoy it!

On Thursday, May 12^th, the NFL released the game schedules for each team. This was the first look for fans to see what competition lay ahead for their teams in the upcoming season, and it provided each team's social media groups a chance to have a little fun.

Each year when the schedule is released, some teams like to dive right in, display it, and commentate how they think their team will do. Other teams though, want to go the extra mile to entertain their fans by making funny, over-the-top videos that showcase their teams, players, cities, and upcoming schedules.

I had off on Friday, so I spent the day compiling a spreadsheet of each team and their schedule reveals and put a very basic ranking to them to see who had the best, and who had the most "Eh".

I'll embed some of these videos and link to the rest so as to not destroy whatever email client you are reading this in.

This is not the most scientific ranking by any standards, and everything boils down ultimately to my opinions, so don't be mad if I unfairly put your team at the top/bottom. Just have fun and enjoy the process.

Didn't Bother with a Reveal

The following teams didn't bother putting out a "fun" release video. Most had podcasts or commentary about the schedules, but those aren't fun!...so I didn't include them.

• Baltimore Ravens
• Cleveland Browns
• Miami Dolphins
• Pittsburgh Steelers

Meh Reveals

Diving right into teams that bothered to have some fun with the schedule reveals, we start with those who tried to make it exciting but may have missed the mark. While I will be highlighting more below, please feel free to click on the team name links to view the videos of these teams in the bullet-point list(s).

• Chicago Bears - The Chicago Bears had a montage of their Quarterback Justin Fields making "trick shots" into a ball bag, representing each of their opponents. I found this video extremely repetitive, and the trick shots would have been more exciting if they were real "single-takes", instead of over-edited, multi-angle recordings.
• New England Patriots - The New England Patriots released a video of former Head Coach Ernie Adams providing short commentary on each game in front of a whiteboard. Nothing exciting, nothing bad; it leaves me feeling "Meh." (And no, me being a Bills fan did not influence this decision)
• Kansas City Chiefs - Falling right in line with the "Coaches Read Schedules" and "Dan is probably biased against this team", we have the Kansas City Chiefs reveal. An employee gives Andy Reid the coNFiDEnTIal 2022 schedule, and he casually reads it out at his desk. Nothing exciting, onto the next.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers - I'll give it to Tampa Bay that they are the first team to start trying something somewhat entertaining on this list. They had their offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs stand in front of a green screen for each team with props & a backdrop to match the team they are playing each week. It's a start, but also nothing viral-worthy when it comes to other reveals.
• Los Angeles Rams - It's tough when your sister team puts together one of the best reveal videos, but the Rams had a great concept & just failed to execute in an exciting way. "Stealing the schedule" could have been very exciting and fun, but it just fell short in my eyes.
• Jacksonville Jaguars - Who doesn't love a good voiceover video of great football plays? Oh, that's right, I don't 😅 It's a neat video for sure, but it would work better for the opening game than a fun schedule reveal, in my opinion.
• Indianapolis Colts - Their quarterback Matt Ryan - nicknamed "Matty Ice" - is seen spending all of his time carving an ice sculpture for one of the matchups for the Colts. He's then disappointed to learn that he has to make 16 more, in the same way that I'm disappointed we didn't get to see 16 more; instead, it was just a short scroll of the season. Another one that could have been cool - pun intended - if fully executed.
• Cincinnati Bengals - The Bengals put together a pretty nice animated short containing still-shots of their players in the different cities of their weekly matchups. It was a nice little video that potentially deserves to be higher in this list, but there was some fierce competition that pushed them this low into the "Meh" category.

Middle-of-the-Field Reveals

• Seattle Seahawks - Not quite a schedule reveal, but the Seahawks pranked their players by showing them a fake schedule with some terrible dates & matchups where they played every holiday and had no bye-week after playing in Germany.
• San Francisco 49ers - Like the Jaguars, the 49ers put out a video with some dramatic museum, slow shots, and a video filter that looks like it belongs at the beginning of a Wild-West film. Is this too high up for this video? Probably, but it does look cool, even though I could probably make the same thing in Adobe AfterEffects.
• Minnesota Vikings - Vikings-legend John Randle delivers fun little visual scenes for each week's matchup. His intensity, jokes, and overall tone keep this video out of the "Meh" category, but its general uncreative nature keeps it from being higher.
• Atlanta Falcons - Look, I'm also a sucker for a Rube Goldberg machine, and this is probably why the Falcons ranked so high. The machine isn't overly complicated compared to some others, but it's neat, and honestly, Goldberg machines are a pretty easy way to make a video more interesting than it should be.
• New Orlean Saints - The Saints put three of their athletes against three of their content artists against one another in a game of Charades & Pictionary. Their respective teams had to guess the correct opponent to earn points. It's pretty entertaining but it also drags on a bit too long, in my opinion - or maybe that's just my ADHD.

Houston Texans - Logo Tracings

The Texans learned from the mid-2000s Disney Channel stars and had their star players attempt to free-hand draw their opponent's logos for each week. It was pretty entertaining to watch just how bad their drawings could be, but I also can't judge too harshly; my team's quarterback thought this was a good drawing of our logo.

New York Giants - Eli Manning TOP SECRET

Alright, who doesn't like Eli Manning poking some fun at himself? The video shows Eli talking through how he has given himself the TOP SECRET mission to design the Giants' 2022 schedule, and he discusses all of the strategies he has employed to do so. It's pretty funny, and it ends with the Giants' new head coach Brain Daboll giving the schedule to Eli, to Eli's disappointment...Almost as much disappointment as when I learned the Bills gave up Brian Daboll to the Giants this offseason. 😔

Quality but Not Quite There

• Washington Commanders - The team put their players in a "rage room" with baseball bats, sledgehammers, and objects depicting their opponents. What results is 3 minutes of chaos and destruction for some good fun.
• Green Bay Packers - They went old school bar-cade, creating a seemingly real retro golf game that you might find at an arcade or bar. It features the players as the golfers, and each hole/shot represents the opponent they are facing for the week. It's pretty well done & high quality, but it's in this section purely for lacking some "entertainment" value.

Buffalo Bills - Pure Chaos

The Buffalo Bills chose chaos for their schedule reveal. I'm not sure how else to describe it. I knew it would be weird when the video started with Dawson Knox dipping Wings in some bleu cheese before gripping it by the end with the bleu cheese. Quarterback Josh Allen ultimately ties it together by saying, "What does this all mean? Absolutely nothing", and I loved it. Go Bills.

Detroit Lions - Special Training

Ahh, if only the Detroit Lions could play football as well as their social media team could make videos like this. The video features Dale Brown of Detroit Urban Survival Training and many Detroit Lions players showing the viewer how to handle encounters with the upcoming opponents; all of who were wearing poorly-yet-wonderfully made costumes. I definitely enjoyed watching this - Best of luck to our Lake Erie sister team.

Dallas Cowboys - Stephen A Smith

The Cowboys are finally highly ranked in an NFL category for once, but sadly it's for my bad takes on what constitutes a good schedule reveal video. Their video is based on notable radio & TV announcer Stephen A. Smith discussing the Cowboys team. It then includes cameos from Cowboys players, owner Jerry Jones, and more before finally cutting to an edited version of Smith’s speech that leaves him confused because it's cut to make the Cowboys sound better than they are. This is fitting for a team that always gets talked up more than they deserve.

Cremé of the Crop

Finally, let's talk about the big dogs, the best of the best. These videos are all pretty great, in my opinion, but a few definitely reign supreme.

• Philadelphia Eagles - Eagles Insider Dave Spadaro leads different Eagles players through a short gameshow challenge where they must use a balloon to knock over the different cups representing their opponents. Definitely some quirks and funny moments to be had, and it's always fun to pit players against each other.
• Carolina Panthers - The Panthers went all retro with their "Now That's What I Call a Schedule Reveal" video that comes straight out of the 90s. It's a neat nostalgia trip for some - maybe less so for me since I'm a '97 baby 👶🏼 - but it looks cool, has excellent quality, and definitely shows off some creativity.
• Tennessee Titans - The Titans have gone a different route; their video showcases individual Tennessee small businesses for each of their matchup weeks. While I don’t think it's designed to be entertaining per-say, I believe the creative idea and execution put its higher on the list.
• Las Vegas Raiders - As hype videos go, I think this is as good as it can get from what we’ve seen this year. The video follows the envelope containing the 2022 schedule as it blows 💨 all around the city of Las Vegas, showcasing many of its attractions and areas, before ending up back in the stadium. While there is not much of a schedule reveal, I think it is an entertaining hype video.

Denver Broncos - The New Intern

While it almost seems unreal that Seattle traded away their MVP-level quarterback Russell Wilson, it at least allowed the Denver Broncos to create a fun schedule reveal video. In it, Wilson is the new summer intern under the existing intern, none other than Peyton Manning. The video is full of quirks, jokes, and Office-like moments that make it enjoyable to watch. Of course, it also helps that Peyton Manning is a fun guy to root for, so anything involving him instantly goes up a rank or two in the poll.

Arizona Cardinals - Kids Name Teams

In the same way adding Peyton Manning makes the video more likely to succeed, adding kids doing funny things makes it more likely to go viral, and the Cardinals know this. So their video introduces one of their social media team members asking kids to name the team’s different opponents given only the logo, and the kids give back their gut-instinct answers for gut-wrenching laughter. Names like “The Kitty Kitty Kitty Kitty Catties” for the Panthers, “Sea Chickens” for the Seahawks, and “The John Cenas” for the New England Patriots make this 3-minute video a nice fun break from reality.

New York Jets - Out of Context

The New York Jets drafted well for the field, but they must have drafted their PR & social media teams just as well because this video is a blast to watch. It takes out-of-context phrases said by players during previous games and over-dubs them into wacky situations involving their opponents. It’s an amusing & entertaining few minutes where you forget all of the past woes of the Jets team themselves.

Los Angeles Chargers

Alright, this is it; the top of the top. Whoever made this video for the LA Chargers deserves a raise because their Anime intro featuring the Chargers players, coaching staff, and opponents is second to none for quality, design, and music choices. I felt like I was watching any other anime, and I was blown away at how catchy this tune was.

I'm excited to see if this energy lives up for the season opener against the Buffalo Bills on September 8^th.

Well, that's it! That's all the reveal videos. I hope you enjoyed watching them as much as I did, and I hope you agree with at least most of my picks. If you feel like I did a team dirty or ranked another too high, please don't hesitate to reach out to me on Twitter.

Take care, everyone, AND GO BILLS!