Sports

The NFL's 8 Best Schedule Release Videos, From Buccaneers to Chargers

By Doug Farrar Athlon Sports

The NFL is a league that will promote, puff up, and monetize anything it possibly can, and there is no greater example than Schedule Release Day. May 14 is months away from when the games will actually be played, but even the pre-release leaks are big deals at a time of year when the news cycle is at its lowest, and a low news cycle is something the NFL simply won't tolerate.

Fortunately for the league, their efforts at this time of year are aided quite well by those who create schedule release videos for social media that humanize and turn into real entertainment what used to be a series of simple per-team lists. These people know how to have fun with the creation of something out of just about nothing.

The best people doing this understand the line between what's good to joke about, and where that line is. The Tennessee Titans' 2023 release video, which has garnered more than 31 million views, remains the gold standard. Tennessee's social media team went to Broadway and asked passersby to identify the Titans' upcoming opponents.

A simple concept, executed to absolute perfection.

"If you watch everyone's videos, they've all taken on this spirit of playfully jabbing at each other," Tyler Pino, the Chargers' director of production, recently told The Athletic's Jayna Bardahl. "Every team jabs at us now on [schedule day, which I always find funny. 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."

Shannon Joyner, the Falcons' VP and chief marketing officer, agrees.

"I think that's what the schedule release night is," Joyner said. "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."

These artists don't have a ton of time to do what they do. NFL teams get their schedules 24-48 hours before they're actually released, so one must be on one's toes when it comes to doing the best with that information in a short space. Of course, video people already have the opponent stuff cut up, as teams have known their opponents for a while now, if not the actual 17-game order.

So, which teams did the best jobs with their schedule release videos? You can watch them all here, but these are the ones we enjoyed the most.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Tampa Baywatch!

Kudos to the Buccaneers for putting some real thought, and some pretty serious budget, behind their Baywatch pastiche. This is pure gold... or pewter in this case.

Cleveland Browns: Street Fighter: CLE!

Speaking of late-80s weirdness, we are in favor of the Browns' tribute to the Street Fighter video game. We're not exactly sure how Shedeur Sanders ended up as one of the game's main characters, but that aligns with the severe mystery of how he made the Pro Bowl.

Kansas City Chiefs: QVChiefs

Moving to 1990s cheese, and the Chiefs' home shopping network montage. Yes, kids, before Amazon and the internet, we had to watch this dreck and use landline phones to order "online." The reference to horse farts re: the Denver Broncos was catnip to my brain, which has never matured beyond the pre-teen phase from a humor perspective.

Chicago Bears: Bob Ross and Happy Little Trees

Bob Ross' legendary The Joy of Painting show went form the 1980s into the 1990s, so it certainly fits the overall theme. Receiver Rome Odunze nailed his Ross tribute, from the epic afro to the sotto voce to the "Happy Little Trees" tribute.

Indianapolis Colts: The perfect Simpsons tribute

The Colts went full Springfield here, and it really worked. D'oh! indeed.

Atlanta Falcons: This is SportsCenter

The Falcons led with legendary quarterback and current President of Football Matt Ryan in a series of very nice tributes to ESPN's old-school SportsCenter commercials.

Seattle Seahawks: Eau de Lomabrdi?

The defending champs portrayed their opponents as different fragrances, and the 49ers' "Substation" cologne was particularly spicy. Ouch!

Los Angeles Chargers: Still the best

Of course, we were all waiting to see what the Chargers' team would do, as they're generally recognized as the best in the business when it comes to this thing. From the Halo games montage to the veiled shot at New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel for... well, you know... this was above the fold as usual.

Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 5:33 PM.

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