NFL in London

National Football League in London

2021 Jacksonville Jaguars London

2021 Team Schedules

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The NFL has released the 2021 Team Schedules, and all signs point to football coming back.
Boy are we ready!

Much like every incarnation of the NFL, the release of the season schedule brings with it much pomp, circumstance, and privacy.
In years past, NFL season schedules were typed, printed, faxed, and usually made it to a 4×4 square on page 98 of the sports pages.

Oh how times have changed!
Teams are now adding a bit of pizzazz to the proceedings, with great graphics, poignant puns, and plenty of trash talk when targeting their opponents on twitter.

We’ve added some of the team schedules of all the NFL teams, so that you can plan your viewing excitement come September.

Buffalo Bills

Buffalo opens up their 2021 season with a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.  This should be a great test to open up the playoff chances of the Bills against a team that went 11-0 to start off the season.
The Bills end their season with the Jets, which is always nice for an easy ‘W’

Cleveland Browns

The Browns added some style to their 2021 Schedule release, with some throwback graphics and helmet overlays for their opponents.
Sadly for the Browns, their season starts with the Kansas City Chiefs, who gave the Browns a right kicking last time.
Fortunately, they end the season off with a game against the Bengals.

Carolina Panthers

Keeping it simple, the Carolina Panthers threw down the blue and black for their 2021 schedule. First up is Sam Darnold and his ‘ghosts’, as the Panthers face the New York Jets in an anticipated match-up. The Panthers also have a Boxing Day game against the Bucs, which should be exciting as well.
Sadly their last game of the season is also against the Bucs.

Chicago Bears

The Bears went all ‘Insta’ on their schedule release, with a simple image that looks like Jackson Pollock doodled all over the bottom of the page.
The Bears have one of the toughest schedules in the league for 2021, and an opening game against the LA Rams will certainly be a test.
Chicago also has to face the Vikings in weeks 15 and 18, which could have playoff implications.
Unless they totally suck.

Denver Broncos

The Broncos are a team in need of direction, which shows in their 2021 schedule release. Plenty of space, but not a lot of info-fitting for this Denver team.
Denver still has that begging question ‘Are we getting Aaron Rodgers’, which could add to the team drama.
With a regular season game against the Kansas City Chiefs, an Aaron Rodgers led team could lead to an epic finale.

Green Bay Packers

Get your cheese-heads ready, we’re in for a wild ride Green Bay.
More drama than your mama, the Packers are watching their dirty laundry bounce around the neighbourhood.
Even if AR does return, what kind of toxicity will be in that locker room?
Fortunately for the Packers, their last game of the season is the Detroit Lions.

Indianapolis Colts

What can the Colts do this season? They have been ‘luckless’ as of late, with Phillip Rivers dribbling in the cup on the way to a lack lustre season.
They’ve got Carson Wentz, and the Seattle Seahawks as their first opponent.
The Colts finish their season with a divisional matchup with the Jags.
Are the Colts playoff bound this year?

There are 272 games across 18 weeks.
Some will be amazing.
Some you will only watch on catch-up the next day.
Isn’t it great to have the NFL back?

2021 Season Schedule

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The official NFL 2021 season Schedule is out, and boy did we guess wrong!
The NFL tickled us with surprise for this year, and what a pleasant surprise it is.

Wade & Ryan talk all about it in our 2021 Season Schedule Podcast.

Using the clues and hints dropped by the NFL, NFLUK and other rambling journos-we had anticipated a late October matchup with the Falcons and AFC opponent.
With the addition of the Jags to the mix, we then thought an NFC opponent would be plucked from the schedule to fill the role.
Given that the NFLUK likes to schedule games on consecutive weekends, we thus concluded the Patriots and Cardinals would be the visiting team at the end of October.
Nope and nope.

So, now we know the following NFL games

Sunday October 10, 2021-2:30pm GMT

NY Jets vs Atlanta Falcons

Sunday October 17th, 2021-2:30pm GMT

Miami Dolphins vs Jacksonville Jaguars

Some great games that we are highly looking forward to.

Among some of the other things the guys discuss in this episode includes.

London Games

When do tickets go on sale? How much are they? Do I need a vaccine?
We don’t know anything about this yet, but will let you know when we do.
Things are looking good Covid-wise for the 2021 London games, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The NFL must be dealing with a logistical nightmare of moving parts, and a myriad of questions.
With a new variant, travel opening up, and vaccination target rates being reached, we are hopeful that everything will go off swimmingly.
Let’s just get through the summer.

Week 1 Games

What are the top games everyone is looking forward to on week 1?
Browns vs Chiefs? Dolphins vs Patriots? Bears vs Rams?
There are loads of tough contests out there to kick off the season, and no one likes to do it with a W.
The ‘odds’ are out for week 1 games, and Ryan wants to make some bets!

Falc-Off

Julio Jones doesn’t seem happy. He’s left off the Atlanta 2021 hype package, and he’s getting less love each year.
Will the Falcons double down on Pitts, or try to make everyone happy?
Falcons need a winning season for any sense of pride.

Sad Pack

Aaron Rodgers wants to break up with Green Bay because they aren’t nice to him. We don’t know what he wants exactly, but he is totally putting the big ‘D’ in the drama here.
After some great NFC dominance the future of the Packers playoff runs could be in jeopardy. (get it?)
Fortunately the Packers brought in the double B in Blake Bortles, who has been spending his free time listening to his name on ‘The Good Place’ reruns.
Green Bay has buckets of talent and primed to actually contend for the title if they are able to make a few deft moves, as well as prime up the locker room motivation.
Thus far, they seem like a family on edge.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers throws during the first half of an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings, Monday, Sept. 8, 2008, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash) ORG XMIT: WIMG111

Timma!

Tim Tebow is back, and he’s ready to convert! To tight end.
The NFL free agency world went loopy this week at the announcement that Tim Tebow would be returning to the NFL.
Why not Kaep? Why this washed up white boy?
Have some ‘faith’ in Urban Meyer.
Tebow took the 90th and final roster spot to return to a state where he is held as a football ‘God.’
Tebow might jump on a few surprise snaps, but will find himself riding the pines most of this season.
Considering the jump in lumber prices, he might have the most expensive seat in the house.

Have a laugh and a listen to the podcast.
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Football is coming back! Are you ready?

London Hosts Two-2021 NFL Games

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Wee ha!
The NFL is coming back to London, and it looks like we are getting not ONE, but TWO matches, as it was announced London is to host two, 2021 NFL games.

So who is coming, when, and how can you get tickets?
We’ll have all that information for you shortly!

Atlanta Falcons

It was announced earlier this year that by Falcons own Arthur ‘Blank-itty-Blank’, that the birds would be perching at Tottenham stadium for a 2021 game.
While we don’t know WHO that they are to play, there are certain clues that the NFL has dropped to allow us to figure out which team might be playing here.

We know that their opponent MUST come from the opposing conference, which means that Atlanta would be facing an AFC team.
After looking at the schedules, attendance figures, past London schedule and potential COVID situation, we determined that their opponent would be the New England Patriots.
We still believe that they will be the team that the Falcons play.

The NFL also likes to take advantage of the week long gap during the time changes between Europe and North America.
With only a scant 4 hours between us, it makes game viewing a little easier on the West Coast, so that fans don’t have to get up at 3am to watch the game.
This makes the last weekends of October the most logical choices for London games.

We had originally thought that with one game, the NFLUK would want to balance the game out during the month.
With the news that Jacksonville would also be coming to the UK, we pushed that Sunday back a week, so that one of the games falls over the time change gap which occurs on Sunday October 31st, which will most likely be a game date.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Jacksonville announced this week that they would also be returning to London in 2021 for ONE NFL regular season game.
With an expanded 17 game season, and a roster buoyed by young and excitement, the Jags could be an interesting game to watch.

Trevor Lawrence will certainly bring the hype train to London, along with his cast of young, plucky stars who probably have never crossed the ocean on a flight.

As previously mentioned, the NFL International games are comprised of two teams from different conferences.
The Jaguars have 8 home games at TIAA Bank Field this season, and the London game is considered one of their home games.
Looking at Jacksonville’s home schedule we can see that they have 6 matches against AFC rivals (Titans, Colts, Texans, Bills, Dolphins, and Broncos), with 2 NFC games against the Cardinals and 49ers.
Given schedule, team priority, travel time, and local newspapers, we believe that the 2021 Jacksonville opponent will be…the Arizona Cardinals.

The NFL has a history of scheduling these international games back to back, so it makes sense that this game will be on continuous weekends.
This allows them to put all the banners across London, keep their staging facilities up, as well as package the games into a marketable, big event.
Given this, the weekends of Sunday the 24th and Sunday the 31st most likely.

Covidity

What’s the deal with Covid? Will visitors need a vaccine? Will there be passports of health? Can Americans visit?
No idea.
All of this will be a wait and see from the UK government.
For those of you from abroad, the UK is due to open to ‘normalcy’ by the end of June 2021.
Should this hold, and we stay clean and healthy, we SHOULD be able to host the games without issues.
Given the nature of the virus, it is unlikely that Tottenham stadium will be at full capacity, but it should be quite full of fans.
Again, this will take a while to figure out.

The whole schedule is released on Wednesday May 12th, at 8pm EST.
Once it’s released we will know a bigger picture, as well as how close we were to picking the right teams and dates.

Are you ready for some NFL in London?