After reported delays because of an effort to add more divisional games in the final weeks of the season, the NFL announced it would unveil its 2010 regular season schedule on April 20.
The unveiling of the league's lineup of 256 games -- and, more importantly, which games will appear on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights in prime-time slots -- ranks as a big day for many NFL fans who wait for the announcement and then fill in dates on their calendars and planners, and then schedule their fall and winter weekends around games.
This year the announcement comes just two days before the NFL Draft, making for a busy week for league officials.
While the NFL no doubt wanted to get the schedule out sooner, some factors beyond the league's control might have played into the delay. For example, a busy offseason featured the move of some big-name players (Donovan McNabb among them) and well-publicized troubles for other big-name players (with Ben Roethlisberger atop that list).
After all, a matchup between the Redskins (McNabb's new team) and the Eagles (his old team) certainly might be of more interest to TV now than it was a month ago. Also, Roethlisberger's troubles almost certainly hurt the chances of the Steelers getting multiple numbers of prime-time games -- as they have in the past -- becuase the NFL certainly does not want to put a troubled player and much-hyped off-field storyline front and center any more than necessary.
Since reshaping the schedule inevitably takes time, the NFL's reactions to those actions might be another reason for the delay in releasing the schedule. We'll find out for sure April 20.