The NFL's Mike North Discusses How the 2022 Jets Schedule Was Made (5/17)

a vertical, this is what I got. Okay, I get it, I see, thank you, goodbye. But now seventy two hours later, everybody's had a chance to see what everybody else got, and in some ways it might make you feel a little bit better about what you got. In other ways it might make you feel a little worse. So still a couple of texts and emails, nothing to um, you know, ornery or or disastrous um, but definitely still some questions.

And I think as everybody gets into it a little bit more over the next couple of week days and weeks, we'll field a couple more questions. But you know, as I think I've said to you guys before this thing isn't really about making everybody happy. It's about disappointing everybody equally. And I feel like that's kind of where we landed. Nobody's uh, nobody's too high and nobody's too low. Did you feel any questions or comments from the Jets over the weekend. Um, No, they've been good so far. I

have not heard from Homie or Brian Mulligan or from coach. Um. Look, they're they're obviously in our backyards. We talked to them regularly, and I think we had a pretty good sense of the kinds of things that they were looking for in this season. Um. You know, obviously your record dictates most of your television. So it comes down to travel, It comes down to a home opener, It comes down to

a Thursday home game. You know, Like most teams in the league, I think two of the things that they were focused on, we're opening at home and catching that Thursday game. Everybody's got one on a short week. I think most teams, if you asked them, would prefer to have it at home. So, you know, of the things the teams were looking for this year, the Jets checked a couple of boxes, you know, with the home opener

in the Home Thursday. All right, we're gonna dive into the deep on with the jets here in a second. But can you talk about the making to the schedule being a combination of both art and science. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I mean, it's been art for so so long. Um. You know, those of us who have been doing this for five years, we go back to the days of Vow Pinchback, the father of NFL scheduling.

He used to build the schedule by hand, one game at a time, one decision at a time, making the best decision in the moment, but really not having any indication of what corners you painted ourselves into, what rabbit hole you're now going down, or what branches of the search tree you now completely have lopped off by making a decision that felt like the right decision in week

two or week three, or for ESPN in week six. Um. So uh, we're all still kind of doing it the way val always did it, but obviously taking advantage of the software and the hardware. Instead of building one schedule and going down one path, we can go down dozens of night hundreds over the course of a couple of weeks. Thousands by the time we're done. Uh, we ended up literally completing over a hundred thousand legal, playable, feasible NFL

schedules this year. So the math and the science and the search and the heuristic and the algorithm and the optimization they can create a lot more options for you. Now, the question is are they better right? Which ones are are good, which ones aren't quite checking the boxes that Howard Kats, who runs the scheduling process, has in mind. You know, we sit down February eight or whatever it is, the day after the Super Bowl, and Howard's kind of got a vision in his mind. Here's what the primetime

schedules should look like. Here's what we're gonna do for Amazon or his streaming partner. Let's not forget Team X or Team why maybe got the short star last year. Let's make sure we don't doubleding him again. So he's always got a picture in his mind, and it's our job to kind of get into his mind, maybe sometimes even read his mind, and kind of teach the computers what it is Howard's thinking about. And then Hans Schroeder, Brian Rolapp, Roger Goodell, the guys that run NFL Media. Um,

you know, manage all our media partnerships. They've all got conversations with our network partners trying to figure out, you know, the right buttons to push, the right levers to pull. And like we said, in a way, you know you're not gonna make everybody happy, but hopefully you can give everybody a little something. Nobody gets everything, but everybody gets something sort of the way we think about it. And instead of building one schedule by hand, we can build

a hundred thousand with the computers. I assume we're better than we would have been if we had just build one by hand. Mike, how quickly is that process? Add twenty thousand schedules are generated? And you guys, is it instantaneously? Where you go, okay, a hundred, twenty thousand, three hundred or four hundred, and then can you talk about we them down from three hundred? Yeah. Like most projects, you know,

you start with a really wide net. You've got a lot of options and you're willing to consider an awful lot of things. So those early days of scheduling, we're cranking out hundreds a day, um. And then after you start to see a few things, you know, the boss starts to get a little comfortable. You know what, I really like when Green Bay Chicago lands in week two on Sunday night, or I really like when Fox gets

the doubleheader in week twelve. I really hate when the Jets catch a three game road trip and it includes their trips to Denver, Green Bay, and Minnesota something like that. So you look at as many of these schedules as you can early in the process. They're coming in faster than we can even really kind of you know, process them.

So it's really more about using our scoring system, checking out some hot button issues, looking at the things that we know we're focused on, and so early in the process, lots and lots of schedules, but most of them get cast aside pretty quick. The more you cast a side schedules, the more rules you write, the more constraints you add to the model. Now, instead of many schedules, you start to taper down, and by the end you're really only seeing a couple of day. The bad news is you're

only seeing a couple of day. The good news is they're all good, they're all checking the boxes, they're all getting pretty close to you know what, Howard Katz and Hans Schroeder and Roger Goodell have in mind when we hand them this two seventy two piece puzzle. Good for this guy, bad for that guy. It is a zero sum game, after all. Anything that's good for the Jets is bad for the Patriots. Anything that's good for CBS is probably bad for ESPN. So try to balance it out.

And uh yeah, the tapering of options happens smoothly, not too quickly, until we get to the very very end. And once you're kind of hanging that leader in the clubhouse on the wall, and we know we've got one that we could play. If we're gonna beat it, it's probably gonna be very similar, just on the margins. Let's

not rethink kickoff, Let's not rethink Thanksgiving or Christmas. We like that schedule that's hanging on the wall, but if we could fix that Houston three game road trip or that CBS one o'clock window in week eight, we should at least try. So you let the computers run basically until the last minute, and you just keep throwing contenders at the leader in the clubhouse, and if it survives, you know you're getting pretty close to the best. You're gonna do. Alright, Mike, what do you say to the

Jet fan. You live in this area, so you're around Jets fans to say, Mike, what about some primetime love. Yeah, we got the Thursday night game, the home game gets the Jacksonville Jaguars December twenty two, and that's nice. But just the one game and the thirteen one pm starts. I'll tell you that was not a conscious effort on the league offices part. We didn't set out and say, okay, Jets maximum one prime go. Um. You know, the record probably didn't warrant the NBC Sunday Night package, but they

were absolutely in the mix. For ESPN. We looked at plenty of schedules, literally right up until the very very end, where you might have seen like a Jets Patriots or a Jets Bills game on ESPN on Monday Night Football. I don't think our friends at Disney would have complained if that's where the schedule had landed. Um, you know that being said, uh, I think I said this the other day. You know you, um, you play your way in the prime time. You don't necessarily draft your way

into prime time. We all feel like the Jets got better Uh at the draft. Nothing would be you know, better for the league than to have both New York teams competitive and relevant and delivering a lot of eyeballs, um on a Sunday afternoon or on Monday night. So uh, you know, we don't root for anybody, of course, we root for all thirty two equally, but uh, it'll be good for the NFL to have the Jets and Giants, uh, you know, with winning records in playoff contention, and that

will bring additional prime time exposure. Let's remember this conversation though, in a couple of years, because when I come back on and they're on Sunday night, Sunday night twice and Thursday night and a doubleheader and Christmas, you guys are gonna say, hey, wait a minute, we love the days of Sunday at one o'clock. It's uh, it's a good price to pay for success. Hey, we're talking to the fan right now. I gotta ask that question because it's on their minds. There's no doubt about that. Um, So

let's get the record straight. There was some talk, there was some consideration putting the Jets on the ESPN. It just to him turn out somewhere in these hunting whatever thousand schedules that we look through, including some really right down to the very end, I'll be very honest with you, the ESPN Monday night doubleheader this year where we're playing an ESPN and in ABC game side by side with

each other. Uh, we absolutely looked at contender finalist schedules where instead of Tennessee Buffalo and Week two, it was Jets Buffalo and Week two. So absolutely in the mix, no question, it was a possibility. Nothing anybody here would have blanched at or winstad Um. It really just came down to, hey, this particular schedule is a little better than that particular schedule, and this was the one that

happened not to have the Jets on Espen. But uh there was no conscious effort by the scheduled team to prevent that. Uh, it was an option. Uh, it just didn't happen to land on on the final leader. Oh most Jets Buffalo week two in prime time? Well, uh, maybe another year. Let me ask you this. You mentioned the Jets opening at home. Is that something that they requested or said we'd like to do that, considering we haven't had a home game home opener since nineteen and

also this was the twenty one anniversary at nine eleven. Yeah. Look, the truth is every team in the league wants to open at home. They also want to close at home. They also want to have a mid season bye week. They also don't want to go to Florida in September when it's a hundred degrees. They don't want to go to Lambo in January when it's negative ten degrees. They don't want to play the Kansas City Chiefs coming off their bye week because Andy Reid never loses off his

bye week. I mean, everybody's got the same wish list. You could probably submit the wish list for the Jets um but yeah, i mean, look, everybody focuses obviously when the schedule comes out on week number one. We've got four months ahead of us to get ready for the opener. It's hard to start, you know, gearing up in May for a week three or week six or week nine. You know, so everybody's looking at week one. I'm sure every team in the league would prefer a home opener.

What we try to do is balance it. You know, you can't have a home opener every year, but if you've had a you know, lengthy stretch of road games in week one, it's probably something the scheduling team auto work to address and at some point kind of pay what we owe. Uh, you know, sometimes it's a little out of our hands. The stadium might be blocked, there might be a conflict, there might be you know, a

baseball game across the street. Uh, you never know, But as best we can, we sort of track all these things and all these rules and all these constraints. Plus the clubs remind us, you know, they're not shy, and they have very long memories, and if they feel like, hey, we're owed one here, they'll tell us and we'll do what we can to sort of make it right. The Jets have eight fewer rust days than their opponents, tied for the fourth worst rust rust differential in the National

Football League. I feel like that's something new that people are talking about. Ten fifteen years ago. You didn't hear too much about that, did you. No, No, And look, the truth of the matter is it's a story on release day, no doubt, and obviously we pay attention to it. Eight nine, ten, twelve, fourteen days total up, ard down, good or bad. That's probably within you know, hailing distance of everybody else in the league. If you see a schedule or somebody's you know, plus twenty seven or minus

thirty two, that's probably not our best schedule. So you know, to say that minus eight, minus ten, minus twelve is fair or unfair, I think it's relative to the rest of the league. And plus our data guys have spent a lot of time kind of analyzing this. Um. You know, we have yet to find a situation where it really jumps off the page as this is truly unfair. There was a stretch maybe five or ten years ago where playing a team coming off there by week, especially if

you were on the road. You go on the road to a team who's rested something like you know, impact and expected win percentage, that's pretty significant. You can't avoid them all. You're gonna have them, but you probably shouldn't have two or three land on the same team. UM. Now it's sort of shifted. You know, if you look at the data, it kind of shows that rest is just like everything else. It could be whether it could be quarterback play, it could be uh salary cap devoted

to certain position groups. Good team has overcome challenges. Bad teams will you know, struggle no matter what obstacles are in their way. Um, but you you hardly ever hear a team or a coach uh say to us, hey, you know, we can't compete as a result of this, you know, negative rest discrepancy. They'll show up, they'll play, And there's times every year when the team that's you know, minus seven in rest gets a W and there's times when the team there's plus three or four gets beat.

So we watch it, we monitor it. You know, our data and analytics folks are always kind of bringing our attention those things which start to be you know, trending towards Hey, we ought to avoid this. Uh, we're not quite there yet. On rest discrepancy. Anything in the you know eight, ten, twelve, up or down is probably standard. And if it happens to the same team, you know, down, ten, down, fourteen year after year after year, then yeah, probably at some point we ought to flip it around. But a

man that had this exactly right. But I think the Packers were one of the teams with the worst rest discrepancy last year. I think they had five game with negative rest. They want them all. Hey, speaking of the Packers great transition, you must be looking at my notes here. Interesting dynamic for the Jets. They go out there in week six and face Aaron Rodgers and company the Packers the week before, playing across town Giants, not across the town, though,

across the pond over in London. They declined to buy afterwards, right, yep, yeah, most of the teams did. I mean, you know, the Jets have been over there. It's uh, it's the kind of thing where maybe eight or ten years ago was still you know, so new, and everybody's still kind of

adjusting to the concept. You know. They used to go over Monday Tuesday, spend the whole week there, get their body clocks acclimated, uh, and then fly back and take the bye week, and everybody's sort of decompressed and reset and go from there. Lately, it's become you know, I don't want to call it routine, because it's not, but it's getting pretty close to just another road game for these guys. They get over there Friday, maybe even Saturday.

Sometimes the vast major are the games lately, and certainly all of them this year are being played in the afternoon over there, So nine thirty in the morning Eastern time over here in the States. They're gonna be back at jeff k or Newark by you know, one o'clock in the morning. Probably not that different than if they were playing on the road at Seattle or San Francisco.

So almost of the teams this year opted not to take the bye week coming back from the UK, and it's an indicative I think of the fact that everybody's kind of adjusted and it's becoming much more routine, at least from a football operations standpoint. Win bet is now live in New Jersey and they're bringing the excitement of win Las Vegas to online sports betting. Get in on all your favorite teams, players and sports from boostep partlays to live in game odds on every major sport. They

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twenty one the older at President New Jersey. If you're someone you know has a gambling problem called on seven zero seven one one seven Mike cal Rare is that the the Jets opened up with four consecutive games against teams outside the a FC East in the same division, the f C North. Yeah, look, I'm I wouldn't bet that it's unprecedented to open up those first four weeks

without a division opponent. I would not be surprised if that's the first time it's happened like that, where you play everybody from um, you know, another division like that all in a row. We pay a lot of attention, obviously to how we spread the division games around within a season. I don't think we're at our best if you know, the Jets or anybody else played four or five of their first six games against division opponents, or maybe even four or five of their last six games

against division opponents. We had that last year in the schedule that we played uh in the NFC East. Uh, just an awful lot of NFC East matchups in December and January, hopeful that that division was gonna come right down to the wire and all those games were gonna matter. Didn't quite pan out that way. UM So again, not on precedent in it it's really more about spreading those division games throughout the season, kind of have a balance, you know, some of the first third, some in the middle,

and of course saving some for the end. Um. I would not be surprised if this is the first time that the Jets played four teams right in a row to start their season from a division that wasn't their own. Yeah, going back to nineteen seventy, we believe it's actually the first time. And then I know you've taken a lot of questions on this already. Deshaun Watson. Does that go into consideration in terms of we don't know right now? Obviously he's on the Cleveland Browns roster. A lot of

people are expecting a suspension at some time. Yeah, we don't know, honestly, any more than you do or Adam Schefter. Um, you know, I heard that this was the first uh disciplined case with the new cb A, So I'm not even sure the decision rests solely with the commissioner anymore. Uh, we don't know. It could be tomorrow, it could be a year, it could be two years. There could be a suspension, there could be no suspension. Uh, none of us know. And as such, we really didn't take that

into account. Um, just kind of you know, let the chips fall where they may. As it turned out, I think the Browns ended up with two national games. Chance for a third. I think they're in the Saturday pulled down there in December, so one of the first third, one in the middle third, one in the back third. Um, look, if if Deshaun's playing and he's healthy, Um, you know, he's one of the best players in the league, or he was last time he was on a football field,

and last time we all got to see him. So I'm sure if he plays this year and we all see if he is who we all thought he was. Um, you know, the Browns record in their national appearances will reflect that. In schedule this year, we didn't factor in anything because frankly, we don't know anything. Yeah, obviously Judd's Browns. We two in Cleveland. I wanted to go back to

the division here. FC East sets up interestingly for the Jets because prior to their Week ten by they have three divisional games all at home, whereas another side of the spectrum, all the divisional games the back end are on the road. Is that something you all typically try to avoid you know what for a team like the Jets. You know, you think about the Jets, the Bills, the Patriots, those are all cold weather outdoor stadiums. It's gonna be cold whether you play the game at home or on

the road. Um, you know, it might be the kind of thing where we look at trying to think of a good example. Maybe Minnesota, Detroit, you know, having to go on the road to Green Bay and Chicago, asking a dome team, or even in the a S East right, asking the Dolphins as a warm weather team to go on the road to all three cold weather road Division games in the second half of the season versus the

first half of the season. Unprecedented. Probably not something we wouldn't play, probably not, but something to pay it's eensin two and something that I imagine the team would bring to our attention. Probably I'm not sure. Again it's competitively unfair, um, but probably just another one of those you know, oddities, unique set of circumstances, nothing intentional, and let's see how it plays out. If it turns out to be truly unfair, probably the kind of thing we'd look to avoid in

the future. Yeah, let's see how it plays out. Because the Jets might use this their advantage here before the bye with those home games at MetLife Stadium. Uh yeah, it's just interesting. As far as the way it all comes together, win bet is now live in New Jersey and they're bringing the excitement of win Las Vegas to online sports betting, getting on all your favorite teams, players and sports from boost a parlays to live in game odds on every major sport. They have what you need

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seven or seven one one. As far as the league is concerned, can you talk about the increasing number of broadcast partners and also the Amazon streaming the Thursday night

football is now? Yeah, no doubt. I mean, look, you mentioned whatever you said nineteen seventy there, think about going back to basically every game was at one o'clock or four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and that was it, right, And then we added Monday night football in the early seventies and everybody said, nobody's gonna watch football in primetime on a weeknight, on a school night, on a work night. You guys are nuts. That turned out to be a

relatively successful franchise. Same thing we went to Sunday night football. Um, you know, we've added Thursday nights over the past fifteen years. We've got nine thirty a m London games. We're playing on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, on New Year's Uh, there's an awful lot of new windows. And as long as you know, the lubs can adjust and handle it. And like we said, turn that which seems, um you know to be uh

unique and different, suddenly becomes routine. Right. These London games are now relatively routine for our teams, um, and I think our fans are starting to find uh more of our games kind of wherever we deploy them. You know, if if all the games are still Sunday afternoon at one o'clock, um, you don't get a chance to see some of the other teams in the league and you're just gonna watch your team over and over and over again,

which is important a lifeline of the league. And you know, one of the key facets of every one of our broadcast partners relationships with us the home team local market ratings absolutely uh mission critical to the success of the NFL, no question about it. But you know, when you can finish watching the Jets at one o'clock and if the Giants are on by then we should show you a Packers game or a Steelers game, or a Bills game

or a Chiefs game at four thirty. Uh, and then another one on Sunday night and another one on Monday night. So trying to you know, innovate, look for these new windows. Our fans will tell us, um, if we've gone too far or if there's a window that they're not interested in. Uh. You know, the proof is in the pudding. As always, and at least so far, our fans have found our games as we've deployed them across different days and different

time slots and different network partners. Amazon is gonna be different, gonna be interesting. Um. You know, we have prime accounts. We're probably gonna find the football games. If not, our kids will help us, uh find Amazon Prime. Our folks might need a little help, So it might take a little bit of a transition, and everybody's gonna have to get used to, um, you know, finding the games uh

you know, deployed on a streaming service. But um, you know, if you think back just a couple of years, you know, Netflix, Hulu, Paramount Peacock, all those things were uh you know, in their infancy, and and no real assurance that they were gonna work, that fans were gonna find them, that people are gonna be interested, the people are gonna pay for them. Now, you know, it sure seems like there's room for everybody.

It really does. And they're just another button on your remote, right channel to channel four, channel five, Netflix, Zulu, Amazon, Um, it's become routine for us. I think it will take a little while for fans to you know, get used to, uh finding it on a new broadcast outlet. We haven't had a new broadcast partner, I think in thirty forty years, So it'll take some time to transition, no doubt. But you know, one of the ways you get people used to things like that is to make sure you put

your good games there. And I feel like we've kind of you know, struck that right balance with the Thursday night package. There's some big ones that you feel like, hey, that's musty TV. I gotta go find Amazon. And once you do that first or second time, I think it's just gonna become routine, and hopefully by about mid season, everybody's just gonna you know, remember when we thought people wouldn't find Amazon. Uh, I think our fans are gonna

find it. Deploy a couple of the really big games out there, whether it's a Baltimore Tampa, a Tennessee Green Bay obviously the opener with Chargers chiefs um and who knows that Jaguars Jets game down there December may have playoff implications by the time we get there, and hopefully by then everybody will have figured out how to watch their walking on the streaming service. Now you're talking, you

can talk about a little bit about flex scheduling. Where it's at two in spansion of it in three because I already have my eyes on Monday Night Football in three because uh, my point on this is, yes, thirteen one o'clock starts, but that's written in pencil correct. Absolutely, look this whole schedule is written in pencil. If there's anything that you know COVID taught us, it's that we

gotta be flexible. Everything's written in pencil. Uh, God willing, We're we're through with the pandemic, you know, impacting our schedule. But you know, every year there's surprise teams. Right, what do we have four or five new playoff teams? Every year? There's always somebody going worse to first. Uh. It's hard to maintain success in this league. Everything is kind of set up, uh, you know, for parity, whether it's a salary cap or the reverse draft order, free agency, whatever

it is. Um, it's it's hard to stay good year after year. And here we are making a schedule in April, may you know, guessing who's gonna be competitive in September four months away or in December eight months away. I'm not sure our crystal ball is that good, or if anybody's crystal ball is that good. So an awful lot of chances for us to kind of, you know, use some tools that we have in the toolbox with our network partners, move the games that have playoff implications in

the bigger time slots. Again, it's not always about you know, generating eyeballs, generating ratings. It's about rewarding the teams that have played their way, you know, into bigger television windows, letting our fans meet these teams, because you're probably gonna see him on television in January when we get to

the postseason. So whether it's Sunday Night Football or even on Sunday afternoons, moving from a one o'clock window to a four o'clock window will shorten that runway up as as much as we can try to let everybody know, hey, you're in position to be changed into a different time slot, but it's because you're having success. It's because you're good,

it's because your games matter. Fully recognizing the challenges for the forty or fifty thousand ticket holders, but you know there's million people are gonna watch the game on television. We want to make sure that those fans get to see the games that matter the most. And if our crystal ball was a little blurry in April, and maybe the Jets didn't get as much prime time as they'd hoped, um, there's one way to fix that, and and that's to win.

And when we find ourselves in December, um, there's opportunities to move into bigger, higher profile television time slots, and as you reference, starting in three that will include Monday night football. That's gonna be a challenge for us. All. I don't think we're gonna be reckless or haphazard with it. It's not like we're gonna change it because you know, this team's five and seven and this team six and seven.

You know, we're not really you know, moving mountains there. Um. But if the Monday night football game that we put in week fifteen next season, uh, truly, as two teams that are just playing out the string, we're not doing them a favor by putting them on national television. We're

not doing Disney a favor. We're not doing the fans of favor by asking them to go out for a night game, you know, for a couple of teams that are no longer in playoff contention, especially if there's a game over here sitting on Sunday at one o'clock between two teams that we really didn't see coming. And if we don't change it, that game is gonna be on in fifteen percent of the country, eighteen percent of the country. It's not worth more than that and our fans deserve

to see that game. More of our fans deserve to see that game. So whether we slide it to Sunday at four or Sunday night at eight fifteen, or now Monday night at eight fifteen, we've got more opportunities to reward the teams who have played their way into bigger television windows. Alright, sixty seconds. The Jets plan on playing meaningful football in December. And you've been uh so gracious with your time. You went with the league for more

quarter century. Uh doing this. What kind of advice would you give somebody who's interested in following a career path like this? Uh, I'd start with, have thick skin. Uh. Nobody's ever happy with the schedule, so you've got to be prepared. Uh. You know Howard Katz, who's been running the scheduling process for the last fifteen years, taught us all, taught all of this, taught all of us this a

long time ago. Uh. It's very quick that the you know, parade celebrating your success turns into a mob running you out of town. Um, you gotta have some thick skin, you gotta have a long memory, you gotta remember. Um, you know what you did right, what you did wrong. You gotta be willing to take criticism, you know, strictly from uh, you know, career development standpoint. Uh. You know, this would hold true for literally just about any any industry these days, but especially uh, the NFL and and

specifically the scheduling team. Uh. It's all about the data. It's all about the math and science. It's all about you know, search heuristics and predictive analytics and uh, finding the signal in the noise. There is so much data out there, and you've got to figure out what really matters and what you can use to make your product better. And that's not just for football, that's for any industry.

But you know, for us, every time a fan interacts with the league, whether they're listening to the Jets podcast or calling in the talk radio or adding some either their fantasy team, or buying a jersey on NFL shop dot com, or tweeting something or buying a ticket on a secondary ticketing partner, or following somebody on Instagram, or in states where it's legal, making a bet on a game.

You know, every time they interact with us, they're telling us what they care about, and we're trying to take all that data, listen to the fans as always, they'll tell us what's working in what is and they'll tell us what we are doing right and doing wrong, and really trying to like take all that data. And again, any industry is going through this right now. The days

of gut and feel and instinct. There's always some value to that, but it's really more about the math and the science and the data and the analytics and really trying to figure out, you know, which of these data points really matter and you can use to your benefit and our fans can you know, expect us to use to their benefit. Um. And it's also about really trying

to figure out which of these data sets actually means something. Uh. And like we said, some of these things about rest discrepancy or playing you know too many division opponents, you know, do these things really matter? Or line us up, tell us one to play and we'll be there. And sometimes the team that's favored gets hammered, and sometimes the team that's the underdog with the rest discrepancy and the long travel pulls out of w You never know. That's what's

so great about sports. UM. That would probably be my final piece of advice, you know, be a fan. I mean, we're so lucky to work in this industry to get to talk about and and watch sports for a living. Um,

we should never forget that. I'm certainly very grateful and appreciative of the opportunity and take it seriously and really hope that, you know, this schedule plays out as well as we think it has a chance to here in April, and uh, if not, you know, adjust as we go and and and use the tools that are available to us to kind of shift and reward the teams that have, like we said, played their way into bigger television windows.

Mike North, congratulations on another schedule. Get a couple of days of rest, I know you got a lot of interviews to do, and then start getting after will probably be talking year later in December, I would think, because the Jets they think they're gonna take some steps, we'll

have to see. Yeah, look, love to be back on and then and talk about what worked, what didn't work, what we learned, and maybe even kind of tell your fans, hey, here's what to think about these next four weeks, because if they are in a playoff chase, there might be some games that are gonna have to shift some time slots and how that all works and what has to happen for everything to line up? Happy to do it, and uh yeah, let's let's hope that's exactly what Jets

fans are dealing with in December. Be a good problem to have. Thanks brother, Take care