I’ll give you an example. Did you know that we’ve only had 2 home games to close the regular season from 2014? The only two other seasons that we closed at home were 2015 against Washington and 2019 against……. Washington. Oh, and if that’s not uncreative enough, let me show you all how many times we have finished our regular season against a particular division rivals:
Washington: 2014 (Away), 2015 (Home), 2019 (Home), 2022 (Away), 2023 (Away – based on a thread I saw)
Philly: 2016 (Away), 2017 (Away), 2021(Away)
NYG: 2018 (Away), 2020 (Away)
Assuming that we close at Washington, as expected, then that means we will have closed against them 5 times, with only 2 being at home. So, not only is closing with Washington unoriginally common, but they’re it’s usually at their place. Then again, they’re the only team that we have closed at home against in nearly 10 years.
By comparison, here’s how the other division rivals have finished:
Washington not only closed at home against us 3 times in that span, but they also closed at home with the Giants in 2016 and against Philly in 2018. That’s 5 times they have hosted the season finale, including against us.
Philly – aside from the 3 times they closed at home against us, they closed at home against Washington in 2020 and NYG in 2021. That’s 5 times (tbd for 2023), including against us, that they have closed at home in that same span .
NYG – aside from the two times that they’ve closed at home against us, they’ve closed at home against Philly in 2014, Philly in 2015, Washington in 2017, Philly in 2019, and Washington 2021 (2023 TBD). They’ve been the luckiest of the teams with 7 home finales.
So, in the span of nearly 10 years, we’ve had 2 home finales. Washington and Philly have had 5 home finales. The Giants have had 7 home finales. How unbelievably unoriginal is that? I don’t understand how the NFL determines schedules, but I find this ridiculously unoriginal. Then again, FedEx field is usually an extra home game for us anyway. That said, it’d be great if the NFL would, I don’t know, schedule us for a few more home finales. I did find it rather interesting to see the home finale counts. It’s amazingly unbalanced when you break it down like this.
As for the Giants, we have opened against them in the following years in the same time span: 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019. Then, we opened against the Rams to open their stadium in 2020 and the Bucs in 2021 and 2022 before now opening again against the Giants this year. That’s 5 years out of nearly 10 years that we’ve opened against them. This includes 3 years ina row of the same opener in the same place as 2015-2017 were at home (as was 2019).
So yeah, I think the NFL is a bit repetitive with their schedules making. They love to have us open against the Giants, and they won’t schedule us for a home finale. Thoughts?
