The 2026 NFL schedule dropped Thursday night, and some teams clearly aren’t happy about where they landed. Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning, addressed the pushback on Friday, and he did not sugarcoat it.
In comments shared by ProFootballTalk, North pointed directly to Tennessee as his reference point:
“Not to point fingers, but I think the best comp is probably Tennessee from last year. They drafted No. 1 overall, took a quarterback who looks like he can play in this league, [and] they didn’t happen to get a national television appearance last year, either. … We don’t draft our way into primetime. We play our way into primetime.”
The Titans selected Cam Ward with the top pick in the 2025 draft and still didn’t earn a single scheduled national television appearance that season.
Tennessee once again will not play in any primetime games in 2026 despite having a budding star in quarterback Cam Ward, with the team’s last scheduled primetime appearance dating back to September 2024.
North’s Tennessee reference highlights how primetime is actually earned
The league’s position is grounded in how its broadcast partners operate. ABC, NBC, Amazon, and ESPN are paying multi-billion dollar rights fees to fill windows that audiences will actually watch.
A high draft pick generates franchise excitement, but it doesn’t move a national television needle on its own.
The Titans aren’t scheduled to play in primetime in 2026, although they could potentially be flexed into primetime contests during the season. The door isn’t closed.
The league’s scheduling philosophy holds that past performance dictates scheduling decisions more than draft status, which explains why established stars receive significantly more featured slots than unproven rookies regardless of their draft position.
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