NFL Schedule Release REACTION: Patriots Face Nightmare Schedule, Rams DOMINATE Primetime, Week 1 Primetime Lookaheads, TNF Bigger than MNF?
3 and Out with John Middlekauff
iHeartPodcasts and The Volume
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of 3 & Out, John Middlekauff reacts to the NFL officially releasing the full schedule and breaks down the biggest takeaways from the 2026 slate. Which teams got favorable draws, who got buried with tough stretches, and what stood out most from the schedule release?
John also dives into the Week 1 lineup, highlighting the best matchups around the league and the games fans should already have circled on the calendar.
Plus, a look at the changing NFL media landscape as Amazon continues to reshape Thursday Night Football and Netflix expands its NFL strategy with more special event games. What do these streaming moves mean for the future of how fans consume football?
And could Wednesday NFL games become a real thing? John discusses the possibility and whether the league is pushing the limits of the weekly football calendar.
All that and much more on this episode of 3 & Out.
Follow John on Twitter, and Instagram for the latest.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:05.2 | The volume. |
| 0:19.4 | What is going on, everybody, John Middilkoff 3 and Out podcast? |
| 0:23.2 | Hopefully you are doing well, getting ready for the weekend. |
| 0:26.2 | The schedule release came out. |
| 0:28.8 | I will break down every single game and make a prediction on every single matchup. |
| 0:33.8 | I'm kidding. |
| 0:34.6 | That will not happen. |
| 0:35.8 | But we will talk about some big picture stuff, opening weekend, the primetime games, |
| 0:40.5 | Netflix now getting involved on Thanksgiving Eve, the Black Friday game with Amazon, |
| 0:46.0 | some themes that I saw just on initial glance. |
| 0:50.6 | There's obviously a lot going on. |
| 0:52.5 | This is, it's actually a, this is probably way more difficult of a podcast than anything during the season. |
| 0:59.2 | Because like, where do you even start? |
| 1:00.6 | You're not going to break down all the games. |
| 1:03.1 | Matt, it's just too hard to keep up with everyone's travel schedule. |
| 1:06.0 | So we kind of had to keep it on a macro level. |
| 1:08.9 | I think over the course of the next couple weeks, we can dive in deeper, partly because I |
| 1:15.0 | got to get to my family because my wife was supposed to be on a bachelorette trip, but I'm |
| 1:19.9 | playing in a golf tournament, our mom's here. |
| 1:21.9 | So I just try to keep everything healthy here in the house. |
... |
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