NFL's Opening Weekend Will Be A Kick

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 4, 1998 / 9:18 PM EST / CBS Sportsline

The Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos host the New England Patriots on Monday night and 10 divisional games take center stage on the first weekend of the 1998 NFL season.

"Kickoff Weekend" will mark the debut of the NFL's revised television format, featuring the return of CBS Sports to the network lineup, and new start times.

The 240-game regular season will begin on Sept. 6 and conclude on the weekend of Dec. 26-28. The playoffs begin with wild card weekend Jan. 2-3. The divisional playoffs will be held the following weekend.

The AFC and NFC Championship games will be played on Jan. 17. Super Bowl XXXIII will be held Jan. 31 at Miami and will be televised by Fox Sports.

The opener against New England is the first of three Monday night appearances for the Broncos, who beat the Green Bay Packers 31-24 in Super Bowl XXXII last January. Denver will also play AFC West rival Kansas City on Nov. 16, and the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 21. The matchup with the Dolphins features the NFL's two all-time passing yardage leaders, Miami's Dan Marino (55,416 yards) and John Elway of the Broncos (48,669).

The Packers kick off their season at home on Sept. 6 against the NFC Central rival Detroit Lions. The division which sent four teams to the playoffs last year will also feature an opening week matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Minnesota Vikings.

The season's first Sunday night game on ESPN pits AFC West rivals Kansas City and the Oakland Raiders. The game will mark the head coaching debut of the Raiders' Jon Gruden.

In the NFL's new eight-year television agreements worth a whopping $17.6 billion, CBS, which lost the rights to NFC gaames in the previous contract, will carry AFC games. Fox will continue to televise NFC games.

Also this year, revised kickoff times will give fans a better opportunity to see all the action on television. On Sundays, the late game of network doubleheaders will kick off at 4:15 p.m. ET, instead of 4:05 p.m., allowing extra time for late-running early games.

Prime-time games on Sunday and Monday nights will now begin at 8:20 p.m.

The regular season will be played over 17 weekends, with each team receiving a bye week as part of its 16-game schedule. Byes will occur during weeks three through nine.

Fifty-eight regular season games are designated for national television. CBS or Fox will televise a Sunday doubleheader game to most of the nation each week. CBS will televise eight Sunday doubleheader games and Fox a total of nine.

ABC will broadcast 17 Monday night games. In addition to the primetime package, ABC will televise a wild card playoff doubleheader on Saturday, January 2nd. ABC concludes its NFL broadcast year with the Pro Bowl on February 7th.

ESPN will televise Sunday night games exclusively, another new feature of the NFL's new television package. The network will also broadcast two Thusday night games (Oct. 15, Green Bay at Detroit; Dec. 3, St. Louis at Philadelphia).

The traditionally televised Thanksgiving Day doubleheader on Nov. 26 will feature Pittsburgh at Detroit on CBS and Minnesota at Dallas on Fox.

In addition, there will be nationally televised doubleheaders on two December Saturdays: Dec. 19, New York Jets at Buffalo (CBS) and Tampa Bay at Washington (Fox); and Dec. 26th, Minnesota at Tennessee (Fox) and Kansas City at Oakland (CBS).