
Forum �bersicht Suche Login Registrieren Forums-Blog Landkarte

27	August 2018

re a game for that first

Super Bowl champion Philadelphia will host Atlanta to kick off the 2018 NFL season on Thursday night Authentic Darius Leonard Jersey , Sept. 6.

Green Bay hosts Chicago in the first Sunday night matchup on Sept. 9, while the Monday nighters on opening weekend feature the New York Jets at Detroit, followed by the Los Angeles Rams at Oakland.

The Eagles also will play at England's home of soccer when they take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 8 at Wembley Stadium.

That's one of four international games. The other match at Wembley will be the previous week with the Los Angeles Chargers hosting the Tennessee Titans. Tottenham Hotspur's new stadium, also in London, will be the site for a Raiders home game on Oct. 14 against Seattle.

For the third straight year, the NFL will stage a game in Mexico City: the Rams will host Kansas City in a Week 11 Monday night game.

Thanksgiving will provide a feast of divisional games. The traditional doubleheader in Detroit and Dallas has the Lions playing the Bears, followed by the Redskins at the Cowboys. At night, it will be Atlanta visiting New Orleans.

Other intriguing matchups include Cleveland, which lost all 16 games last season, hosting archrival Pittsburgh on opening day; New England at Jacksonville in a rematch of the AFC title game in Week 2; the Eagles and Vikings in an NFC championship game redux in Philly on Oct. 7; and the Steelers vs. Patriots in Pittsburgh in Week 15.

"We like to open at home in front of our great fans and this will be the second season in a row we do it against the Steelers," Browns coach Hue Jackson said. "We start with the best in our division."

Fox, which will do 11 Thursday night games, begins its package in Week 4 with the Vikings at the Rams. Those contests also will be televised by NFL Network and in Spanish on Fox Deportes. NFL Network has seven exclusive broadcasts.

Flexible scheduling in which a Sunday afternoon game can be switched to the evening because it is a better matchup than the previously planned game will be in use for Weeks 11-17. But two Sundays in Weeks 5-10 also can have a game flexed to night.

In a new twist, flex scheduling will be used for Saturday games in Weeks 15 and 16. In Week 15, two games will be played on Saturday Ronald Acuna Jr. Atlanta Braves Jersey , Dec. 15: Houston at the New York Jets and Cleveland at Denver, with game times of 4:30 p.m. EST and 8:20 p.m. EST to be determined. In Week 16, two of four possible matchups will be scheduled for Saturday: Baltimore at the Chargers, Jacksonville at Miami, the New York Giants at Indianapolis, or Washington at Tennessee. Start times for Saturday games for Week 15 and 16 will be announced no later than following Week 8, with the contests not chosen for Saturday to be played on Sunday on the 16th weekend.

"We knew who our opponents would be, and that we would play seven games against teams that were in the playoffs last year, including two against the Super Bowl champions, so we knew it is going to be a challenging schedule," said Pat Shurmur, preparing for his first season as Giants coach. "I don't see anything remarkable about the schedule, but it is very challenging."

As usual, no Sunday night game has been scheduled for the last day of the season, Dec. 30. That will be chosen after Week 16 games conclude.

The 2018 schedule has three three-game road trips Da'Ron Payne Color Rush Jersey , down from seven last year. The Saints, Rams and Ravens will have those three-game journeys, but the Ravens and Rams also have three-game homestands. In all, 12 franchises are home for three straight weeks, and Baltimore and Indianapolis have a bye in there, meaning neither club will leave home for a month.

Also, no team plays a road game following a road Monday night match. That occurred last year five times.

The playoffs begin with wild-card weekend on Jan. 5-6. The Super Bowl is Feb. 3 in Atlanta.

"I always look forward to this time of year, getting our players back in the building, getting back to football, and then on top of that we get to see how our schedule sets up and start our preparation," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. "We've got a lot of work to get done before Sept. 9. I'm excited to get started and I know Chiefs Kingdom will be supporting us the entire way."
AP Sports Writer Tom Withers in Cleveland contributed.
Andrew Luck feels as sore and tired as he expected four days into training camp.

He's also pain free 鈥?just as the Indianapolis Colts hoped.

Luck passed his first major tests by returning to the practice field, taking all of his normal snaps during the Colts' first two workouts, connecting with receivers on the run rather than throwing at stationary targets while feeling good physically and mentally.

It's a good start for the quarterback with the surgically repaired right shoulder.

"Every day there will be new hurdles," he said Sunday. "The second day, things seemed to calm down or slow down a lot. The first day I was nervous Authentic Calvin Ridley Jersey , I was excited and there was a certain element of the unknown. I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen. It was also very fun to be out there with the guys and focus on getting better at practice and not just surviving practice."

The angst could be sensed all around the Colts' new camp site earlier this week in Westfield, Indiana, a northern suburb of Indianapolis.

Fans roared throughout Thursday's opening workout, even cheering when Luck was throwing to ball boys and quarterbacks. One fan shouted "stay in that pocket" as Luck went through an individual drill designed to help all four quarterbacks evade oncoming pass rushers.

Not surprisingly, the early jitters also impacted Luck's performance.

He was just 4 of 9 with an interception in his first 11-on-11 work since having a partially torn labrum fixed in January 2017.

On Friday, he was 15 of 19 overall.

He resumed throwing Sunday night, his first full practice in pads in nearly 20 months, and was 19 of 22 with two touchdowns in seven-on-seven and 11-on-11 drills.

"There have been four or five throws that have been like, 'Oh yeah, that looks 100 percent like normal,'" coach Frank Reich said before the evening workout. "Then there have been one or two that we just need to work through and continue to get better."

Luck did not talk with reporters after those practices or Saturday when he left the field about halfway through Saturday's practice at Grand Park Sports Campus 鈥?as scheduled.

"It's weird, but this is the plan Frank and I and (general manager) Chris (Ballard) and everybody who helped came up with at the start. I know it's helped me continue to get better and better and better," Luck said. "It is sort of a bit odd to reconcile 'OK, I'm out here, but I don't get to participate."

But after blaming his slow recovery at least partially on skipping steps in a rush to get back Clay Matthews Jersey , he's sticking to the plan this time.

And Reich intends to hold him to that promise even though Luck is under no restrictions on the field.

Luck still must pass a few more milestones such as throwing deep balls and taking hits. The wait may not be too long.

Reich has said he expects Luck to play in the Colts' preseason opener on Aug. 9 at Seattle, though Reich has not yet determined how much Luck will play.

"I'm going into this from the very start that he was full go, fully cleared for everything. We have some planned rest days, but in my mind the amount that he plays is he's 100 percent in my mind," Reich said. "We will plan him playing accordingly based on how much we would want to play our starting quarterback."

Luck isn't just starting to shake off the rust.

With each successive practice, he seems to be picking up Reich's newly installed offense better and continues to look stronger and more confident in the shoulder.

"It's fun. What can I say? I had jitters like before a game for that first practice, which was a neat feeling. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. It's been responding well," he said. "No pain. Soreness, tiredness for sure and stresses on my arm that are different. Shoot, there are stresses on everybody's body at this camp that are different."

Notes: Reich hopes to have injured offensive tackles Anthony Castonzo and Austin Howard back "pretty soon." Neither has practiced yet and only eight of the 15 offensive linemen practiced Saturday. ... Offensive lineman Jack Mewhort returned to practice Sunday after getting an extra day off Saturday. ... The evening practice was marred by a scuffle that began when right guard Matt Slauson instigated after he thought George Odum took an unnecessary hard shot on rookie running back Nyheim Hines. ... Linebacker Anthony Walker left practice early with a groin injury.
.