The New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers don't play a game at the same time until Week 15 of the 2020 season, which will allow New England fans to follow Tom Brady closely with his new team.

What might have been viewed as a masterful ratings-focused move by the NFL was actually a coincidence, helped by both teams having five prime-time games.

"Putting together the 256-game schedule is very complex -- it's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," league spokesman Brian McCarthy said, when asked if the league had this Brady-Patriots dynamic in mind. "The minimal conflicts here are coincidental."