The NFL schedule is constructed over 10 weeks and involves nearly 500,000 mock drafts that juggle the requests of 32 teams and five networks.

"It's a war room," said Mike North, the league's director of broadcast planning. "We close and lock the door. The windows are frosted. It's a key-card entry. And there are password-encrypted computers.

"It's a bunker is what it is. It isn't clean. It doesn't smell good. But we lock ourselves in there for 10 weeks and do not emerge for anything other than to go home, get some clean clothes and come back and do it again."

The NFL had a conflict with the MLB for their typical Thursday opener at the home stadium of the defending Super Bowl champion, which forced the Baltimore Ravens to play at the Denver Broncos in Week 1.

"It's really part art and part science," North said of scheduling. "It's an unimaginably large solution space, with 800 trillion possibilities, combinations and permutations. We're looking for a needle in a haystack, and there are a million haystacks. So that's the science part of it.

"But it's art, too, and Howard Katz is the artist. He has a vision in his mind for what this painting looks like. [He'll ask] how strong does the Sunday night schedule need to be? How strong does the Monday night schedule need to be? What are we doing for Thursday nights this year? What's on for Week 1 or division games for Week 17? Who's on Thanksgiving? Who's in London? Who's in Toronto? How do we avoid stadium blocks? How do we avoid postseason baseball?

"He has a vision in his mind about what this thing's going to look like when it's finished, and it's our job to help him see where those brush strokes are going to lead."