The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 NFL schedule release.
When Kenton Olson sat with the Seattle Seahawks social media team in 2016 to brainstorm their schedule release approach, he posed a question:
What’s something that would get my mom to pay attention to the schedule?
It sparked inspiration for the NFL’s first team-produced schedule release video, where the Seahawks baked cupcakes tied to their opponents. It was instantly popular, and within the next few years, every team began producing a schedule release video of its own. Little did Olson and his team know they would help turn a half-baked moment on the NFL calendar into an all-out content Super Bowl.
“There have been times over the years when I have had to apologize to other people,” said Olson, who is entering his 20th year working with the Seahawks, now as the VP of digital and emerging media. “Now there’s this very stressful time that everyone’s putting all this extra time and effort into because it’s definitely a lot of work.
“I definitely did not expect to make it a tradition.”
That’s exactly what it became. Each year, social media teams around the league flex their creative muscles with new themes and ideas that raise the standard. Some videos are nostalgic, others are celebrity-driven, and it’s not surprising to see a few petty jokes thrown toward opponents and rivals, too.
Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s senior vice president of global social, creator and content marketing, described schedule release as “tailor-made” for social media and credited the individual clubs for making the moment so grand.
The NFL sends best practices to clubs each year, which include past content that performed well and strategies to reach an international audience, but otherwise, the league office is fairly hands-off. Although some teams may consult the league for feedback, others keep their work in-house until they hit publish. There’s no requirement for the league office to view or approve videos before the big day.
“This is a club-driven moment with their cities and their fans,” Trombetta said. “And then we as a league look to amplify all of that and then obviously push out to ensure that we reach the most people possible through our social channels, which are, in most cases, much larger than a single club.”
Last year, the lack of guardrails caught attention with the Indianapolis Colts’ controversial Minecraft-themed video. When revealing the Week 1 opponent as the Miami Dolphins, the video showed a dolphin with the name “Hill” on its No. 10 jersey swimming before a Coast Guard boat blared its siren, seemingly mocking wide receiver Tyreek Hill’s past legal troubles. The video was later taken down both because the Colts exceeded their rights with Microsoft to use the Minecraft animations and because of the “insensitive” nod to Hill.
Hill seemingly took no offense to the jab, posting on social media later that the Colts should have left it up. However, the backtracking from the team raised the question of where the bar is for poking fun at opponents. How far is too far when referring to specific players? Team traditions? Or coaches?
“I think by and large the clubs do a fantastic job of threading the needle,” Trombetta said. “You’ll see that happen where they really ramp it up when they’re announcing Team X is playing Team Y in a division game. And that’s OK. That goes back and forth in terms of how they banter with the fanbase.
“It’s really the personal stuff that we try to, A, advise, just kind of keep it clean in that sense. And then B, if there really is a big issue, then we’ll look at the real-time analytics of what’s happening and respond to that along with the club. But that’s happened very few times.”
The Los Angeles Chargers consistently create some of the most intricate and popular schedule release videos. Aside from the stellar animation displayed in their recent anime, Sims and Minecraft themes, the Chargers are also known to hide small details throughout their videos that quip at their opponents, otherwise known as “Easter eggs.” (The Chargers’ Minecraft-themed video featured a statement at the beginning stating they had permission from Microsoft, unlike the Colts.)
Megan Julian, the Chargers’ senior director of digital and social media, said meetings to discuss the subtle details and digs can last two to three hours. She said her team knows there is more leeway on schedule release day for playful banter, but also acknowledged the internet’s reactions can be unpredictable. In the 2024 Sims video, one of the more viral moments came from the Kansas City Chiefs’ reveal, which showed kicker Harrison Butker cooking in the kitchen, a nod to comments he had made in a commencement speech about gender ideologies.
“I think like our line is: Is this something that we’re going and creating a narrative on? Or is this a narrative that exists that people are talking about online? Is this part of the culture? Is this viral?” Julian said. “If you’re making references to things that are happening in the world, that makes sense. You’re not creating beef. You’re not creating drama out of nothing.”
Tyler Pino, the Chargers’ director of production, described the joking nature of the videos as a way to “honor all of the crazy fans in the NFL.” Last year’s video included scenes like the ghost of Saquon Barkley haunting the New York Giants, and Philadelphia Eagles fans in the streets, rallying to “Save Our Tush Push.” But since they’re dishing it out, the Chargers usually try to include a few self-deprecatory moments, too. Before Jim Harbaugh’s first season as head coach in 2024, they showed his Sim fighting with John Harbaugh in a scene reminiscent of the movie “Step Brothers.”
“If you watch everyone’s videos, they’ve all taken on this spirit of playfully jabbing at each other. Every team jabs at us now on (schedule day), which I always find funny,” Pino said. “It’s all in good fun. But we like to, in our videos, at least once, make a self-referential joke. We’ve done it every single year, so that’s important.”
Last year, the Atlanta Falcons’ “ATL Kart” release, themed after Mario Kart, included many small details that required a quick eye to catch. There were references to fan stereotypes, like cars crashing through Buffalo Bills-themed tables, and to broader conversations in the sports world. One scene showed a character who was presumably Bill Belichick with his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, sitting on a beach with a sign next to them that read: “We’re not talking about this.” It was a callback to the coach’s awkward “CBS Mornings” interview that was interrupted by Hudson several weeks before.
Ryan Delgado, the Falcons’ director of digital platforms, said their team tries to avoid going “below the belt” with digs at opponents, but, when they do make a joke, they do so with attention to detail.
“We don’t set out for this video to be a punching bag for everyone we’re going to face,” Delgado said. “There are moments here and there where there are certain things, if you pause and look at it, they are there by design. But we don’t set out as a mission to make fun of others in these moments.”
Shannon Joyner, the Falcons’ VP and chief marketing officer, said: “I think that’s what the schedule release night is. It’s the one night where everybody can make some jokes, but also be willing to take some jokes. And we want to live in that space.”
Some teams choose to dial up the drama, particularly around division opponents. Olson, the Seahawks employee, said when his team discusses their approach to trolling opponents, they focus on having fun without being attacking.
In honor of the Seahawks’ 50th anniversary last year, the team’s 2025 video was themed as a throwback action figure commercial. For Seattle’s fellow NFC West foes, the Los Angeles Rams were presented as the “L.A. Lambs,” the Arizona Cardinals were sitting playing video games (a nod to former quarterback Kyler Murray) and the San Francisco 49ers were represented by a gold-spitting rock monster who was “spewing ’90s nostalgia” — a dig at a franchise that hasn’t won a Super Bowl since the 1994 season.
“We want to, generally speaking, be a little bit more playful and a little bit higher end, I guess,” Olson said. “That was just a really unique thing that was kind of fun about the Niners and a playful way of doing it without being necessarily over the top.”
Other teams prefer to steer clear of the drama. Houston Texans director of social media Steven Goldfried said his North Star for schedule release video ideation is entertainment-driven. And they do that without crossing a line of jabbing at opponents.
“It’s not a very fine line with us. We have a pretty firm line. We don’t do that,” Goldfried said. “Our concept is still funny, it’s still nostalgic, it’s still entertaining. But I don’t feel that we need to make fun of other people. It’s about us, it’s about the Texans and our fans and doing something for them.”
The jokes are just one aspect of the months-long planning and production that go into schedule release videos. Many teams said they begin brainstorming immediately after the previous season ends. Ideas are thrown at the wall by employees of all different departments and skill levels to see what sticks.
Since the year of the cupcake launch, Olson said the fundamentals of the Seahawks’ approach haven’t dramatically changed. Similar to their overarching social media approach, the schedule release is about creating content that fans want to see. However, a keen eye might notice that sequencing these videos is becoming less universal.
The NFL typically releases its schedule to teams 24 to 48 hours before release, putting social teams on a tight clock to restructure their videos into the correct order. Landing on an idea that can be shot in blocks and then pieced together quickly is a prerequisite to the Chargers’ process, Julian and Pino said.
“That part’s probably the most difficult and the most fast,” Julian said. “You have all the pieces, it’s just like this puzzle that you have to put together in a sprint to the finish line.”
Other teams are pulling back on the sequencing. The order of opponents introduced in the Seahawks and Falcons videos last year was not the same as the schedule. Instead, the videos showed the schedule in full at the end.
“It’s funny, this question is where I get to say I’m old enough to remember when it really was about the video itself matching sequentially to the schedule,” said Joyner, the Falcons’ marketing executive. “Yes, the opponents and the dates and the schedule will get integrated in different ways, but the necessity of the sequencing is — we feel — less important to the quality of the content than it used to be.”
After 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, teams will get the green light to drop their videos into the world, opening themselves up to online chatter and debate. Although much of the conversation starts on X, teams are leaning into other platforms, too. The Falcons, Texans and Seahawks each mentioned experimenting with vertical video, the format more adaptable on TikTok and Instagram.
After the “publish” button is hit, a late night is in store. Social teams around the league stay up watching how their videos resonate, while also dialing up their friends across the league to complement their peers. After that, it’s back to the drawing board.
“You have to enjoy making this and enjoy the process more than the actual end of it,” said Delgado, the Falcons employee. “Of course, you want the views. Of course, you want your jokes to hit the right people and the response to be favorable. That’s all human nature. But there’s no number you can associate with that. It’s just, did people enjoy this? Did you create affinity for your organization, for your players, for your team, for your staff?”
“And two days later, it’s business as usual.”