I hate this schedule. The two "innovations" I most detest in the NFL are the Thursday night game, especially the away Thursday night game, and the game overseas, in Mexico or London. The 49ers got socked with both this year. I'd give back all five of those "prime time" games if it meant not having to play those two games on Thursday and in London. Sucks the bag.

And bp, I think you make a good point about the 49ers-Packers game. In the infallible universe of my memory, it used to be, 15 or 20 years ago, that the season would begin with John Madden declaring that the reigning Super Bowl champion was the best team in the league until knocked out, and everything else was up for grabs: it was a blank slate; except that every year you kind of knew that in Week 9 or 10 or 11 the 49ers and the Cowboys or the Giants and the Redskins or the Chargers and the Chiefs would meet up with both teams sporting a 9-1 or 8-2 record and treat us to an old-fashioned barnstormer.

Since Goodell became commissioner, the feeling at the beginning of the season is more like picking up where things left off the previous December or January, and hence you get these highly charged games in the first couple of weeks presenting rematches of late-season or playoff rivalries from the previous year.

You can understand the reasoning behind this scheduling philosophy, since it stokes the whole notion that the NFL is a year-round phenomenon, and I also get the fact that these early-season marquee games often confound expectations and clear the ground for the new realities and rivalries that emerge later on each year. But I tend to agree that the old approach was more friendly to the fan fantasy that each new season is a completely fresh campaign punctuated by classic rivalries that may or may not have anything to do with meaningful standings.