2018 NFL schedule release: How NOT to watch this trash

Got two hours to spare this Thursday night? Good. Read a book. Watch a documentary. Or get caught up on one of those critically acclaimed series that’s really kind of boring/depressing and your coworkers won’t stop talking about it. Hell, punch yourself in the groin for two hours if you want.

Whatever you choose to do with that time, it’s definitely going to be better than watching a primetime television special about the 2018 NFL regular-season schedule.

That’s right, Thursday, April 19, from 8-10 p.m. ET on the NFL Network, the league’s annual exercise in overreach will be thrust into the sanctuary of your home whether your want it there or not. Of course, you do have a choice.

The schedule will also be posted online — that’s the internet! — where you can access it quickly and conveniently from your laptop, desktop, or handheld device that’s making you stupider by the minute.

Well, I can point to a couple reasons.

First, a 24-hour, 365-day television network dedicated to a sport played six months out of the year has to have some filler, low-cal content dedicated to the glory of The Shield.

And The Shield is nothing if not a well-oiled moneymaking machine enriching 30 or so members of the one percent and a few of their pals in corporate America. To facilitate Roger Goodell’s goal of turning the NFL into a $25 billion per year enterprise (versus a mere $12 billion mom and pop shop), there’s a need to make nothing into something and spread the product further and thinner than it has any right to be.

This is why we have Thursday Night Football, a terrible product that’s ultimately bad for the sport that just had its broadcast rights sold for $550 million per year.

The schedule, duh.

These are games that won’t be played for a more than four months with rosters that haven’t even been decided yet. More than a handful of games will get hyped this week, something that will make them inevitably worse when that Sam Bradford vs. Russell Wilson matchup (already kind of a stinker) turns into Mike Glennon vs. whatever terrible backup the Seahawks signed instead of Colin Kaepernick.

But there’s more!

This primetime extravaganza will also include LIVE REPORTS from the office buildings the Eagles and Patriots call home. And other exotic football related locales, like the outside of AT&T Stadium!

Is there more?

Fuck yeah, there’s more.

Tune in so you can also see completely irrelevant playoff predictions and fantasy football prognostications (remember, the rosters for these teams, much less the starters, are not fully set).

There’s also going to be real live actual monitoring of social media “for fan and team reaction.”

Lemme give you a little taste of what that reaction will be: “huh, we play the teams we kinda already knew we were going to play four months from now. Cool.”

Bruh, this trash wouldn’t exist without the internet. Of course you can!

So if you can’t get to a TV, or if you’re dead enough inside to watch it on your device while there’s something else on TV, you can peep it via the NFL app or on the NFL website itself. But you’ll have to be an NFL Network subscriber.

And maybe this spectacular event will push you over the edge to become a subscriber. Why? Because there’s unique digital content too!! That includes:

How many of those “best” games will actually be good ones by the time shifting rosters and unavoidable injuries have decimated the teams? Who knows. WHO CARES! They’re the best games right now ... in April ... four months before the season starts.

Take my money! Put your wallet away, fool. There’s no charge for these unwatchable two hours of televised schedule chit-chat ... unless you haven’t subscribed to the NFL Network. And in that case, what the hell are you waiting for?! Quality people like Dan Snyder depend on your contributions (and tax dollars) to scrape by in this cruel world.

This is your last chance to actually see the 2018 NFL schedule unveiled in real time. If you miss this show, you’ll have to look it up on at one of several hundred places on the internet with the Google machine or Bing, if you’re really desperate.

So remember, Thursday, April 19, 8-10 p.m. ET ... find something better to do.