2017 NFL season


The 2017 NFL season was the 98th season in the history of the National Football League. The season began on September 7, 2017, with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the defending Super Bowl LI champion New England Patriots 42–27 in the NFL Kickoff Game. The season concluded with Super Bowl LII, where the National Football Conference champion Philadelphia Eagles faced the American Football Conference champion New England Patriots. The Eagles defeated the Patriots 41–33 to win their first Super Bowl title, and fourth NFL championship, in franchise history.
For the second consecutive year, a team relocated to the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as the former San Diego Chargers announced their intent to do so in January 2017.

Player movements and retirements

The 2017 NFL League year began on March 9 at 4:00 p.m. ET. On March 7, clubs were allowed to contact and enter into contract negotiations with the agents of players who became unrestricted free agents upon the expiration of their contracts two days later. On March 9, clubs exercised options for 2017 on players who have option clauses in their contracts, submitted qualifying offers to their restricted free agents with expiring contracts and to whom desire to retain a Right of Refusal/Compensation, submitted a Minimum Salary Tender to retain exclusive negotiating rights to their players with expiring 2016 contracts and who have fewer than three accrued seasons of free agent credit, and teams were required to be under the salary cap using the "Top-51" definition. The 2017 trading period also began the same day.

Free agency

A total of 496 players were eligible for some form of free agency at the beginning of the free agency period. Notable players to change teams via free agency included:
The following notable trades were made during the 2017 league year:

Draft

The 2017 NFL Draft was held on April 27–29 in Philadelphia. The Cleveland Browns selected Myles Garrett with the first overall pick.

Officiating changes

replaced Dean Blandino as the league's Vice President of Officiating. Blandino would then be hired by Fox Sports as a rule analyst.

Rule changes

The following rule changes were approved for the 2017 NFL season at the owners' meeting on March 28, 2017:
The following rule changes were approved for the 2017 NFL season at the NFL Spring League meeting on May 23, 2017:
The ban on teams contacting potential coaching candidates until that candidate's team has been eliminated from the playoffs was tabled.

2017 deaths

The following people associated with the NFL died in 2017.

Members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame

;Cortez Kennedy: Kennedy, a defensive tackle who spent 11 years with the Seattle Seahawks from 1990 to 2000 and had his number 96 retired by the organization, was a member of the Hall of Fame's class of 2012. He died May 23 at the age of 48, from suspected cardiac problems.
;Yale Lary: The special teams standout and defensive back played 11 nonconsecutive seasons for the Detroit Lions from 1952 to 1964, winning three championships, and was a member of the Hall's class of 1979. He died May 11 at the age of 86.
;Dan Rooney: was chairman and plurality owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and one of the sons of founding owner Art Rooney, Sr. Having been officially involved with the franchise since 1960, Rooney was a part of all six of the Steelers' Super Bowl victories. In addition to this, Rooney was considered an active and progressive owner in the league's operations, most famously by successfully pushing for the Rooney Rule, an affirmative action policy requiring all NFL franchises to interview persons of color for head coaching vacancies. Concurrently with his role with the Steelers, Rooney also served as United States Ambassador to Ireland from 2009 to 2014. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000, making him and his father the second father-son duo in the Hall behind Tim and Wellington Mara. Rooney died on April 13 at the age of 84.
;Y. A. Tittle: Tittle, a quarterback, spent 16 seasons in professional football, two in the All-America Football Conference and 14 in the NFL. He played for the Baltimore Colts, San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants throughout his career. He set several passing records during his time in the NFL and is credited for inventing the alley-oop. He was never able to win a league championship despite three consecutive appearances in the game for the Giants, who retired his number 14. He was a member of the Hall's class of 1971. Tittle died October 8 at the age of 90 from complications due to dementia.

Others

for the 2017 season were held in late July through August. Teams started training camp no earlier than 15 days before the team's first scheduled preseason game.
Prior to the start of the regular season, each team played four preseason exhibition games, beginning on August 10. The preseason began on August 3, with the 2017 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals. It was televised nationally on NBC. The preseason schedule ended on August 31; One preseason game between the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, was canceled in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

Regular season

The 2017 regular season's 256 games which were played over a 17-week schedule which began on September 7. Each of the league's 32 teams plays a 16-game schedule, with one bye week for each team. The slate also features games on Monday nights. There are games played on Thursday, including the National Football League Kickoff game in prime time on September 7 and games on Thanksgiving Day. The regular season concluded with a full slate of 16 games on Sunday, December 31, all of which were the intra–division matchups, as it has been since.
;Scheduling formula
Under the NFL's current scheduling formula, each team plays the other three teams in its own division twice. In addition a team plays against all four teams in one other division from each conference. The final two games on a team's schedule are against the two teams in the team's own conference in the divisions the team was not set to play which finished the previous season in the same rank in their division. The preset division pairings for 2017 will be as follows.
Highlights of the 2017 schedule included:
The entire schedule was released on April 20, 2017.

In-season scheduling changes

The following games were moved or canceled because of severe weather, by way of flexible scheduling, or for other reasons:

Division

Conference

Postseason

The 2017 playoffs began on January 6–7, 2018 with the Wild Card playoff round. The four winners of these playoff games visited the top two seeded teams in each conference in the Divisional round games played on January 13–14. The winners of those games advanced the Conference championship games was held on January 21. The two Conference champions advanced to Super Bowl LII was held on February 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The 2018 Pro Bowl was held at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on January 28.

Bracket

Notable events

Protesting police brutality

During a September 22, 2017 speech, the President of the United States, Donald Trump made controversial remarks criticizing the practice of taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem—a practice popularized by Colin Kaepernick in 2016 as part of an effort to protest alleged racial inequality and police brutality. Trump suggested that those who partake in the practice were disrespecting the country's heritage, and asked his audience, "wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'" During the subsequent weekend of games, over 200 players protested the remarks, by either kneeling or locking arms during the playing of the national anthem. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks chose to not go out on field at all during the anthem.

Sale of the Carolina Panthers

On December 17, 2017, Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers, announced he was putting the team up for sale. Richardson had previously indicated the team would be put up for sale after his death, but an exposé in Sports Illustrated accused Richardson of paying hush money to cover up questionable conduct, including racial slurs and sexually suggestive requests of employees, hastening Richardson's decision. The Panthers' lease on Bank of America Stadium expires after the 2018 season, which would allow any incoming owner to relocate the team out of the Carolinas to another market of their choice without penalty if they so desired.

Records, milestones, and notable statistics

;Week 1
;Week 2
;Week 3
;Week 5
;Week 6
;Week 7
;Week 9
;Week 10
;Week 11
;Week 12
;Week 13
;Week 14
;Week 15
;Week 16
;Week 17
;Wild Card Round
;Super Bowl LII

Awards

Individual season awards

The 7th Annual NFL Honors, saluting the best players and plays from 2017 season, was held at the Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 3, 2018.
AwardWinnerPositionTeam
AP Most Valuable PlayerTom BradyQuarterbackNew England Patriots
AP Offensive Player of the YearTodd GurleyRunning backLos Angeles Rams
AP Defensive Player of the YearAaron DonaldDefensive tackleLos Angeles Rams
AP Coach of the YearSean McVayHead coachLos Angeles Rams
AP Assistant Coach of the YearPat ShurmurOffensive coordinatorMinnesota Vikings
AP Offensive Rookie of the YearAlvin KamaraRunning backNew Orleans Saints
AP Defensive Rookie of the YearMarshon LattimoreCornerbackNew Orleans Saints
AP Comeback Player of the YearKeenan AllenWide receiverLos Angeles Chargers
Pepsi Rookie of the YearAlvin KamaraRunning backNew Orleans Saints
Walter Payton NFL Man of the YearJ. J. WattDefensive endHouston Texans
PFWA NFL Executive of the YearHowie RosemanExecutive VP of Football OperationsPhiladelphia Eagles
Super Bowl Most Valuable PlayerNick FolesQuarterbackPhiladelphia Eagles

All-Pro team

The following players were named First Team All-Pro by the Associated Press:

Players of the week/month

The following were named the top performers during the 2017 season:

Head coaching and front office personnel changes

Head coaches

Offseason

In-season

Front office personnel

Offseason

In-season

Stadiums

Atlanta Falcons

The Atlanta Falcons played their first season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, after playing in the Georgia Dome for the previous 25 seasons. The Georgia Dome was demolished by implosion on the morning of November 20, 2017.

Relocations

San Diego Chargers' relocation to Los Angeles

On January 12, 2017, the San Diego Chargers exercised their option to relocate to Los Angeles as the Los Angeles Chargers. They will be joining the Los Angeles Rams as tenants in their new stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California when that stadium is complete in 2020. For the time being, the Chargers are playing at the 30,000 seat StubHub Center in Carson, California, the smallest venue the league has used for a full season since 1956.

Oakland Raiders' relocation to Las Vegas

On January 19, 2017, the Oakland Raiders filed paperwork to relocate to Las Vegas, Nevada. The NFL officially approved the Raiders relocation to Las Vegas on March 27. Unlike the Chargers, the Raiders will remain at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum through at the 2018 and 2019 seasons while Allegiant Stadium is built, with the team moving to Nevada in 2020.

Attendance

The Los Angeles Rams, who had capped season ticket sales at 55,000 for the 2017 season, announced to have 60,128 spectators in the first home game on week 1. However, reports estimate that spectators only filled a third of the 93,607 seats of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Los Angeles Chargers did not sell out their week 2 game at the StubHub Center, which was never expanded to 30,000 seats as originally stated and has typically had less than 26,000 fans in attendance. When the StubHub Center was at capacity, the majority of the fans present were supporters of the opposing team. Among the most notable examples was the October 1 game against Philadelphia Eagles being a mainly pro-Philadelphia crowd.
The San Francisco 49ers reported a Week 3 attendance total that exceeded the capacity of Levi's Stadium, even as wide swaths of empty seats were seen throughout the game. This followed similar sparse attendance for the 49ers' home opener. Even the Dallas Cowboys, a team whose fan base is among the largest in the United States, played their week 13 Thursday Night Football game in front of a half-empty AT&T Stadium. The lifting of the league's blackout policy was cited as one factor in the decline in ticket sales, as viewers would rather watch from the comfort of their homes, especially when weather conditions were less than ideal. At a Colts-Bills game held in blinding lake-effect snow on December 10, scalpers said they had not sold any tickets, an extreme rarity. A majority of television sets in all Western New York were tuned into some portion of the game, the highest viewership for a non-Super Bowl NFL game in the region since record-keeping began.

New uniforms and patches

  • Twenty-five teams transitioned to Nike's new uniform template. While most teams have just transitioned to it without any actual changes to the uniforms themselves, the New Orleans Saints, Cincinnati Bengals, and Los Angeles Rams uniforms are the most noticeable in it, fixing their collars in the process.
  • The Detroit Lions unveiled new uniforms on April 13, 2017, eliminating all black elements from the uniform and logo. They added a new alternate uniform as well as a new Color Rush uniform.
  • The Los Angeles Rams announced they would be switching their primary helmets to white and blue, similar to their Color Rush helmets. The team had fans vote on the color of their facemask, which would be white, and the design of their pants, which would be white with a blue stripe. The Rams also announced that they would explore a full rebrand in the near future.
  • The Cincinnati Bengals will wear a patch to commemorate their 50th season.
  • The San Francisco 49ers have altered their sleeve striping from 3 stripes to 2 stripes.
  • The Seattle Seahawks dedicated their season to former Seahawks defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy, who died on May 23, 2017, by wearing a #96 decal on their helmets.
  • The Pittsburgh Steelers will wear a patch to honor their former chairman, the late Dan Rooney, who died in April, at the age of 84. The patch will feature a shamrock, with Rooney's initials "DMR". The last time the Steelers wore a jersey patch was when Art Rooney died in 1988. They also donned a helmet decal to honor Chuck Noll, who died in 2014.
  • The Dallas Cowboys will wear blue jerseys at home on a more regular basis, marking the first time the team has worn blue jerseys at home outside of Thanksgiving games since the NFL allowed teams to wear white jerseys at home in 1964. Despite the team's well-documented blue jersey "jinx", player preference as well as stronger retail sales of the navy blue jerseys over the white ones have prompted the team's decision. The blue jerseys will be worn for "high-profile" games at AT&T Stadium.
  • The New York Giants wore a #14 decal on their helmets to honor Y. A. Tittle, who died on October 8, 2017. Later, they would wear a "JHT" patch from Week 10 onwards, in honor of Joan Tisch, the mother of Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, who died on November 2, 2017.
  • The Buffalo Bills wore their all-red Color Rush uniforms when they faced the Indianapolis Colts in the aforementioned December 10 "snow game", the first team to do so on a Sunday, and the fourth team overall.
  • All current and former Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award winners will wear a patch on their jerseys in perpetuity to acknowledge to recognize their outstanding contributions to the game and to their communities. Similarly, current nominees will wear a decal on their helmets for the rest of the season.
  • The Atlanta Falcons wore their all red color rush jerseys with black numbers against the Saints on December 7, 2017. The numbers were a classic form of numbers. The alternate has the regular Falcon unlike the other alternate. The regular Atlanta Falcons' alternate is a black jersey, with a black helmet, and on the black helmet is the original Falcons logo.

    Media

Broadcast rights

Television

This was the fourth season under the current broadcast contracts with ESPN, CBS, Fox, and NBC. This included "cross-flexing" Sunday Afternoon games between CBS and Fox before or during the season. NBC continued to air Sunday Night Football, the annual Kickoff game, and the primetime Thanksgiving game, and broadcast Super Bowl LII. ESPN continued to air Monday Night Football and the Pro Bowl. This also was the second and final year of the current Thursday Night Football contract with CBS, NBC, and NFL Network.
Along with ESPN's Wild Card game on ABC, ESPN announced on May 24, 2017, that the 2018 Pro Bowl would also be simulcast on ABC, marking the return of the Pro Bowl to ABC for the first time since 2003. For the first 9 weeks of the regular season, ESPN2 simulcast ESPN Deportes' Spanish-language Monday Night Football broadcasts; this served as filler programming for the channel until the start of its Monday-night college basketball broadcasts.
Although never explicitly announced, the league continued the moratorium on its blackout policy, ensuring all games would be televised in the market of their home teams regardless of ticket sales.
Because of fog and smoke obstruction, NBC was forced to televise large portions of two of their Sunday Night Football games from the skycam angle. Positive reception led NBC to experiment with increased usage of the angle as a primary view during its November 16 and December 14 Thursday Night Football telecasts. Because the angle distorts distance, the traditional sideline camera angle was used for close-yardage situations such as the red zone.

Digital

In over-the-top rights, Amazon Video acquired non-exclusive streaming rights to the 10 broadcast television Thursday Night Football games for $50 million. These streams are exclusive to paid Amazon Prime subscribers, in contrast to Twitter, which held the rights to the same package in 2016 and had made those streams free to most of the world.
Verizon Communications acquired international streaming rights to an NFL London Game between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars, in a similar arrangement to the 2015 game that was streamed by Yahoo!—which was acquired by Verizon in 2017. The game was streamed by Yahoo and other Verizon-owned platforms, including AOL, go90, and Complex. NFL Network remains a partner with Twitter for online content, including its new streaming news program NFL Blitz Live. The NFL also reached a deal with Facebook in September 2017 to offer video highlights following games, and streaming programs on the service's new Watch platform.
This was the final season of the NFL's exclusive mobile streaming contract with Verizon Wireless; the league intended to no longer have a single exclusive partner going forward, citing changes to viewing habits. On December 11, 2017, the NFL announced that it had agreed to a new 5-year, $2.5 billion digital rights agreement with Verizon, allowing it to stream in-market Sunday afternoon games, as well as all nationally televised games, across its mobile platforms. Unlike the previous deal, these streams are no longer exclusive to Verizon Wireless subscribers, as Verizon planned to leverage the divisions of its digital media subsidiary Oath as a platform to promote these streams to a larger audience, as well as other digital content and expanded highlights rights. As part of the agreement, Verizon began allowing access to its existing mobile streams to non-customers for the 2017-18 playoffs. As the new contract is non-exclusive, the NFL's television partners may negotiate to add the mobile streaming rights that were reserved to Verizon under the previous contract; NBC was the first to do so.
Two new international digital rights deals led to user criticism over their quality of service. In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket shifted from distribution through television providers to the over-the-top provider DAZN, while in Europe, Deltatre took over European distribution of NFL Game Pass and launched new mobile apps. Both services faced criticism over their streaming quality, while Delatre's app faced criticism for having bugs and initially lacking features seen in the previous version of the platform. The Independent exposed that Deltatre had also issued an internal e-mail instructing its employees to give the apps 5-star reviews. DAZN subsequently announced that it would return to distributing Sunday Ticket through Canadian television providers in addition to their OTT service.

Radio

This was the final season of the NFL's existing national radio contract with Westwood One. Entravision and ESPN Deportes Radio split Spanish broadcast rights.

Commercials

The league has sought to reduce the number of standard commercial breaks on its telecasts from 21 to 16, four in each quarter, with each break extended by one additional 30-second commercial. One particular scenario the league sought to eliminate is the "double-up," in which a network cuts to a commercial after a scoring play, then airs the kickoff, and again goes to commercial before play from scrimmage resumes. Under the proposal, the league will allow networks to cut to commercial during instant replay reviews, which it had not been allowed to do before. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that the changes are being made in an attempt to consolidate downtime between the actual game play so that there are fewer and less noticeable interruptions; he does not expect the changes to have an appreciable impact on the real-time length of a game, which currently clocks in at slightly over three hours.
The NFL has also, as a trial, lifted its ban on the broadcast of commercials for distilled spirits during its telecasts. However, they are subject to restrictions; a maximum of four liquor ads may be broadcast per-game, along with two per-pregame and postgame show. These ads may not contain football-related themes or target underage viewers, and must contain a "prominent social responsibility message".

Personnel changes

, who announced his retirement as a player on April 4, 2017, joined CBS, where he replaced Phil Simms as lead color commentator. Simms and Nate Burleson, who comes over from NFL Network, will replace Tony Gonzalez and Bart Scott on CBS's pregame show, The NFL Today. Jay Cutler also announced his retirement from professional football on May 5 and was slated to join Fox as a color analyst for its NFL coverage; he later rescinded that announcement in August and joined the Miami Dolphins. Gonzalez will move to Fox, where he will join Fox NFL Kickoff; upon his departure, Gonzalez stated that he wished to pursue opportunities closer to his home in California, rather than travel to New York weekly to appear on CBS. James Lofton, coming over from radio, will replace Solomon Wilcots as a CBS analyst.
On May 31, 2017, it was announced that Mike Tirico would replace Al Michaels on play-by-play on NBC's portion of the Thursday Night Football package, joined by Cris Collinsworth. The NFL had previously required this role to be filled by NBC's lead broadcast team of Michaels and Collinsworth; Tirico called a limited slate of games in 2016, including several NBC-broadcast games as a fill-in for Michaels, and as part of a secondary team for selected games the TNF package. He will also succeed Bob Costas as the lead studio host for NBC. However, due to its proximity to the 2018 Winter Olympics, Tirico did not participate in NBC's Super Bowl LII coverage.
Beth Mowins became the second woman to call play-by-play for a national NFL broadcast, following Gayle Sierens in 1987, when she served as play-by-play announcer for the nightcap in ESPN's Week 1 Monday Night doubleheader, with Rex Ryan as her color commentator. In an unusual case of a broadcaster working for two networks in the same season, Mowins also called a regional game for CBS in Weeks 3, 15 and 17, with Jay Feely as her partner.
Also, this would end up being the last season for the Monday Night Football broadcast team of Sean McDonough, Jon Gruden, and Lisa Salters. Gruden would return to coaching the next year for the Oakland Raiders, while McDonough would return to doing College Football for ESPN, although Salters will still be on MNF. McDonough will be replaced by Joe Tessitore, who has done work for ESPN as a College Football announcer, like McDonough, while Jason Witten, who would end up retiring after this season, will replace Gruden, with Booger McFarland, being added as a field analyst.

Most watched regular season games

*Note — Late DH matchups listed in table are the matchups that were shown to the largest percentage of the market.
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