NFL scheduling executive debunks popular reason why Tennessee Titans got snubbed of a primetime game in 2025

Since the NFL’s schedule release on Wednesday, all the talk in Nashville has been about the Tennessee Titans being one of three teams without a single primetime game on the books in 2025. While being the worst team in the league last year isn’t itself a reason to expect primetime love, taking the top rookie QB in the draft certainly feels like one. So what gives?

Well, there are a handful of reasons why the Titans didn’t get a primetime game that I broke down in detail here. Their home stadium is an active construction zone that complicates logistics, they’re needed in the late window on an unusual number of Sundays due to western road trips, and yes, Tennessee isn’t a market that does ratings that justify a bunch of standalone appearances.

But this wasn’t a decision made purely out of spite, in an effort to disrespect your favorite team. The league did try to work Cam Ward into primetime. NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning Mike North explained in an interview with CBS’s Jonathan Jones:

"I'll start with Tennessee. We kind of have this adage that you play your way into prime time; You don't draft your way into prime time. So the Titans are one of the teams that don't currently have a national television window assigned. But that's what things like flexible scheduling are for. And if you look down the stretch for the Titans, they play San Francisco in Week 15, Kansas City in Week 16. They've got the same opportunity every other team has to play their way into a national window."

If you take your fan hat off and put on your schedule-maker hat for a moment, an overview of the Titans schedule and opponents does reveal an objective reality: there isn’t an obvious game to put into primetime. And to the league’s credit, they put the handful that could eventually make sense in the perfect position to be flexed.

Week 14 against the (Shedeur Sanders?) Browns, Week 15 against the 49ers, and Week 16 against the Chiefs could all prove to be primetime-worthy by the time we reach that part of the calendar. And to North’s point, the NFL and their broadcast partners want teams to play their way into primetime; not to draft their way there. If Cam Ward & Co. are an electric watch by November, they’ll be firmly in contention for a schedule upgrade.

I will poke a little bit of fun at the schedule makers, though, for their inconsistent mantra of “playing your way” into primetime. It’s a logical approach no doubt, but they shamelessly bend that rule for a couple of high-ratings markets they can’t help but show favoritism to.