NBC Sports’ Peter King Sees Jets Playing 10+ National TV Games, Including Week 1

When Peter King talks, football folks listen. And what the legendary NBC Sports analyst, Sports Illustrated icon and five-book author said during last week’s NFL Annual Meeting in Phoenix will have Jets fans thinking hard about their team’s recent low profile on the NFL’s national stages.

Short answer: Those days are over.

“Last year, the Jets had the mandatory national TV game, primetime against the Jaguars,” King told newyorkjets.com‘s Eric Allen in this week’s Official Jets Podcast. “This year, I think they’re going to go up to 10 or 11 national appearances. And that encompasses doubleheader games on CBS and Fox in the late Sunday afternoon window, that encompasses one or two Sunday night games, probably early in the season, and that encompasses a Monday night game, maybe two. And then obviously the [TNF] Amazon game.

“I know probably Jets fans have been very used to going to church, getting a bagel, getting home, and five minutes to one turning on their game because that’s when all the games have been played basically in the lifetime of almost every Jets fan. But that’s going to change this year and you’re going to have to work on changing your schedule.”

King kids, of course. For the first half of the 2010s, the Jets weren’t a hot ticket but they were in the middle of the pack when it came to primetime exposure. But beginning in 2017, which was two seasons removed from their last swing at the postseason dance in ’15, the Green & White have been confined for the most part to games in the daylight. In the past six seasons, they have averaged 12.2 starts at 1 p.m., topped by last season’s franchise-record 14 one o’clockers. Their 10 primetime games in those seasons are the fourth-fewest among the league’s 32 teams. Their last MNF game came in 2020, their last Sunday night game a decade ago in 2011.

What changed? We don’t have to tell you. The much anticipated trade of Aaron Rodgers combined with the third year of HC Robert Saleh’s culture shift and their exciting…