We come to praise the 16-game N.F.L. schedule, but also to bury it.
The 16-game regular season was the Platonic ideal of professional sports scheduling for 43 years, in part because the number 16 itself is a neatly divisible, perfect square of almost fearful symmetry. Each team’s schedule could be easily subdivided into even numbers of divisional games and interconference matchups. With the addition of a bye week in 1990, the 16-game schedule occupied almost precisely one-third of the calendar year, making football season feel comprehensive yet brisk and intense, unlike the sprawling 82-game N.B.A. and N.H.L. seasons that nearly overlap themselves.