2011 Schedule released

[Warren]

Originally Posted by HPF Bob

The best news might be if the lockout lasts into October or the NFL puts on scab teams for the first six weeks as we'll miss the toughest part of our schedule or be on equal terms with a lot of scab teams then have our real players come back for the second half.

If there's scabs then the Texans ought to have an advantage -- think of all those recent Texan players who are out of football. They've been building a potential scab roster for years now.

Weeks 2 and 4 appear to have been set up to be "droppable" if necessary: no division games, no byes, and the teams that play on the road in Week 2 are home in Week 4. So the Dolphins and Steelers would likely be the first games to go.

[Warren]

And each team has the same bye week as its Week 3 opponent, so if the season needs to be compressed that could be done by skipping Week 3 and moving those games to the various bye weeks.

So, if necessary, the NFL could shave the 16-game/17-week season down to a 14-game/14-week version without throwing the schedule too far out of whack (no division games lost, all teams have equal number of home/away games, only one game per team moved). Under that scenario, the Texans' schedule would look like this:

1. Colts
2. Raiders (@ Dolphins cancelled)
3. @ Ravens (@ Saints moved to bye)
4. @ Titans (Steelers cancelled)
5. Jaguars
6. Browns
7. @ Bucs
8. @ Saints (no bye, moved from Week 3)
9. @ Jaguars
10. Falcons
11. @ Bengals
12. Panthers
13. @ Colts
14. Titans

[HPF Bob]

Gotta admit, somebody at the NFL was on the ball to have that all thought out ahead of time and to schedule it as such.

[Keith]

I gotta admit, as a Texans fan, I'm rooting for the 14-game version of the schedule now.

[chuck]

Originally Posted by HPF Bob

Gotta admit, somebody at the NFL was on the ball to have that all thought out ahead of time and to schedule it as such.

To me that plainly indicates that the league has no real intentions of starting the season on time. And as Keith points out, that may not be a bad thing at all for the team. It will certainly reduce their total number of losses.