Tony Romo’s retirement cost the Texans the chance to play the Patriots in season opener

The NFL released its schedule for the 2017 season on Thursday evening, and apparently the Houston Texans missed out on playing the Patriots in the NFL Kickoff Game — all thanks to Tony Romo.

This offseason, the Texans and Broncos were the frontrunners to land Romo after he lost his job to Dak Prescott. Instead, he opted to retire and join CBS in the broadcast booth.

On Good Morning Football Friday, NFL Senior Director of Broadcasting Mike North indicated that the Texans would have been favored to open against the Patriots, had Romo joined them.

Instead, the Patriots and Texans won’t square off until Week 3, a 1 p.m. ET game on CBS.

“If that were Romo-Brady, I’m not sure only 25 percent of the country should see that game. Heck, that game maybe could have been kickoff if Tony signed early enough,” North said.

The Patriots and Texans faced off twice during the 2016 season. First, the Patriots dominated in a 27-0 blowout win in primetime on Thursday night. Then, the two teams played a more competitive game in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Texans’ defense was strong enough to pull the upset — if they had a better quarterback than Brock Osweiler under center. Romo would have been a big upgrade.

North put together a similar scenario for the Broncos.

“If Romo went to the Broncos,” North pointed out, “all of the sudden that Cowboys-Broncos game [Week 2, 4:25 p.m.] becomes a whole different animal.”

So instead of impacting the NFL schedule, now Romo gets to call the games — and we get to watch Tom Savage and Trevor Siemian under center for the Texans and Broncos.