The 2010 regular season will be the first year that the league will use a modified version of the scheduling formula that was first introduced in 2002, in which all teams will play each other at least once every four years, and will play in every other team''''s stadium at least once every eight years (notwithstanding the regular season games played overseas as part of the NFL International Series). Under the original 2002 formula, those teams scheduled to play all the AFC West clubs had to travel to both Oakland and San Diego in the same season, while those clubs playing the entire NFC West had to make their way to both San Francisco and Seattle.[6] In 2008, the New England Patriots and New York Jets each had to make cross-country trips to all four of the aforementioned West Coast teams. In an effort to relieve east coast teams from having to travel to the West Coast multiple times during the same season, clubs would only have to visit one West Coast team (AFC West or NFC West), plus one western team from the same division closer to the Midwest, under the 2010 modified formula. Specifically, those clubs traveling to Oakland would then instead play at Denver, while those playing at San Diego would instead just have a shorter trip to Kansas City. For those playing NFC West teams, some will travel to both San Francisco and Arizona in the same season, while others will instead make trips to Seattle and St. Louis.[6][7][8] The previous schedule alignment was based on alphabetical order and did not take geography into account.

For the 2010 season, the intraconference and interconference matchups are:

Intraconference

AFC East vs. AFC North
AFC West vs. AFC South
NFC East vs. NFC North
NFC West vs. NFC South
Interconference

AFC East vs. NFC North
AFC West vs. NFC West
AFC North vs. NFC South
AFC South vs. NFC East

The entire 2010 regular-season schedule was unveiled at 7:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 20. Additionally, schedule release shows aired on both the NFL Network and as a SportsCenter special on ESPN2.[9] Highlights of the 2010 schedule include:

[edit] Draft
Main article: 2010 NFL Draft
The league''''s 75th annual selection meeting, more commonly known as the NFL Draft, took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City from April 22-24, the first time that the draft was held over three days instead of the normal two.[10]

[edit] Preseason
The Pro Football Hall of Fame Game will be held on Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. EDT on NBC, with the Dallas Cowboys playing the Cincinnati Bengals at Fawcett Stadium in Canton, Ohio.[11] The remainder of the preseason game matchups were announced March 31, 2010. Highlights, among others, include the New York Giants and New York Jets facing off in the first-ever game at the new Meadowlands Stadium on ESPN.[12] The preseason game in the Bills Toronto Series will feature the Bills hosting the Indianapolis Colts in Toronto on Thursday, August 19, at 7:30 p.m. EDT.[13] Exact dates and times for most games were announced in April, shortly after the regular season games were announced.

[edit] Regular season
[edit] Opening weekend
The NFL Kickoff Game, the first game of the season will take place on Thursday, September 9, 2010, starting at 8:35 p.m. EDT, with the Super Bowl XLIV champion New Orleans Saints hosting the Minnesota Vikings, in a rematch of the 2009 NFC Championship Game. Like in previous years, the opening week''''s prime-time games were expected to be announced at the NFL''''s annual owners meetings in late March, but that wasn''''t the case this year, with the schedule announced on April 20.[14]

On March 15, 2010, the NFL announced that both the New York Giants and New York Jets will play at home during the opening weekend to open the new Meadowlands Stadium.[15] The Giants will play on Sunday with a 1 PM EDT kickoff against the Carolina Panthers and the Jets will open ESPN''''s Monday Night Football schedule against the Baltimore Ravens the next night. For the nightcap, the San Diego Chargers will travel to play their division foe the Kansas City Chiefs, marking the first time that a team from outside the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones has played in, or hosted, the "late" (10:15 p.m. ET) game. The game will start at 9:15 p.m. Kansas City time (Central).

[edit] International play
One International Series game will be played in Wembley Stadium in London, England for 2010.[16] League commissioner Roger Goodell is in favor of having two international games played every year on a 16-year rotating schedule that would guarantee each team playing twice over that span ¨C once as the home team and once as the away team starting after 2010. The teams for the London game of the 2010 season were confirmed on January 15, 2010, with the San Francisco 49ers playing host to the Denver Broncos on October 31, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. EDT (5:00 p.m. GMT).[17] CBS will televise this game on a regional basis, as the Broncos are the "visiting" team. The Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks, who had expressed interest in previous games[18] and are set to play each other in 2010 (with the Seahawks as the home team), were a possible matchup for a second NFL game, but league officials dropped a plan for two games in the UK, citing the economy and ongoing labor negotiations.[19]

The following week, the third regular-season game of the Bills Toronto Series will feature the Buffalo Bills hosting the Chicago Bears at Toronto''''s Rogers Centre on November 7 at 1 PM EST, marking the first time that the regular-season portion of the series has taken place during the Canadian Football League season and the first time an NFC opponent plays in the series.[20]

[edit] NFL vs. World Series Game 4
On the same October 31 that the Broncos and 49ers will play in London, the Saints will host the Pittsburgh Steelers on NBC''''s Sunday Night Football, which will go against a scheduled Game Four of the 2010 World Series on Fox, a practice the league has traditionally avoided. The matchup will pit the last two winners of the Super Bowl - The Saints in Super Bowl XLIV, the Steelers in XLIII. It will also take place on Halloween, in New Orleans, a city known for voodoo. Eighteen regular-season games will air on NBC during the 2010 season[21]. Under current circumstances, this will be the first game that Ben Rothlisberger will return from his suspension

[edit] Thanksgiving and Christmas
The Thanksgiving games will take place on Thursday, November 25, 2010, with the Detroit Lions hosting the New England Patriots, at 12:30 p.m. EST on CBS. Fox holds the rights to the 4:15 p.m. EST game, which will feature the Dallas Cowboys hosting the New Orleans Saints. The prime-time NFL Network game, featuring the Jets hosting the Bengals, [22] will kick off at 8:20 p.m. Both the Saints and Bengals will both make their first appearance in a Thanksgiving game; in the case of the Bengals, it will also mark the first appearance of an AFC North team on Thanksgiving since 1998, when the Pittsburgh Steelers of what was known as the AFC Central played the Lions in the now-infamous Jerome Bettis coin toss controversy.

Additionally, since Christmas Day falls on a Saturday in 2010, the NFL has scheduled a game between the Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals in Glendale, Arizona on December 25 on NFL Network.

[edit] Week 17: Division games only
The entire Week 17 schedule, to be played on January 2, 2011, will consist of only divisional contests to increase competition after several cases over the last few seasons of players on playoff bound teams resting their regular starters and playing their reserves.

[edit] Postseason
The 2011 NFL Playoffs will begin January 8, 2011 with wild card weekend. Following that, and after divisional playoffs the next week, the NFC Championship Game will be played at 3:00 p.m. on January 23, followed by the AFC Championship Game at 6:30 p.m.

After a backlash from players and critics about the previous season''''s Pro Bowl being played at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida in the contiguous United States, the date of the 2011 Pro Bowl will be on January 30, 2011, the week before the Super Bowl. Unlike the 2010 Pro Bowl, the game will be played at Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.[23] As a NFL spokesman stated that "Plans for future Pro Bowls are not final"[24]. Indianapolis Colts President Bill Polian has stated his objections to the format, and is in favor of returning the game to after the Super Bowl as in previous years.[25] The annual AFC-NFC all-star game had previously been played in Hawaii for 30 consecutive seasons from 1980 to 2009.[26] However, the NFL and State of Hawaiʻi officials only agreed to a two-year deal to hold the Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium in 2011 and 2012.[26] This gives the option of playing the Pro Bowl in Hawaiʻi on a rotational basis with the mainland, so it both maintains the traditional ties of holding it on the islands and providing accessibility to fans when played in the contiguous 48 states.[26]

Super Bowl XLV, to be held at Cowboys Stadium in North Texas, will be held February 6, 2011 to close out the season.