NFL announces plans to gradually preview the upcoming schedule release

The NFL is stretching out its schedule release plans as long as possible. We know who the Saints will play; here’s when we’ll find out those kickoff dates

You’ve got to hand it to them: the NFL can make anything into a weekslong event, if nothing else by pure willpower, behind-closed-doors secrecy, and dozens of nondisclosure agreements with social media managers across the league’s landscape. On Thursday, the league announced its plans to gradually release bits of information about the 2022 schedule — with the full slate to be revealed on May 12.

Let’s keep it real, here: we already know who the New Orleans Saints will be playing this season (as a reminder, the full list of home and road opponents is included below). What we don’t know is the order those games will be played in, which home game will be moved overseas to London, where they’ll be broadcast among the league’s various television partners, and how many prime-time broadcasts fans will get to enjoy on a national stage.

Still, it’s better than nothing, and May can be kind of quiet for NFL news, so I’m not complaining about the league choosing to draw this out as far as it possibly can. Here are the dates to know for this prolonged announcement:

  • April 28: Week 2’s Thursday Night Football game (the first broadcast on Prime Video)
  • May 4: International games (Saints hosting home game in London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium)
  • May 9-11: Select games like season openers, prime-time matchups, etc.
  • May 12: Full schedule release at 5:00 p.m. CT

And here are the Saints’ home and away opponents for 2022: