For the social media departments of all 32 NFL teams, May 14 was the real Super Bowl. In this game, there’s no Lombardi Trophy. These winners get something way more valuable: marketing impressions!
On this stage, a positive comment from a fan is like a solid four-yard run. A quote-tweet from a popular blue checkmark account calling your work “amazing?” That’s a broken tackle for a touchdown. You can dance in the end zone if you want.
We are, of course, talking about NFL Schedule Release Day! A newly minted unofficial NFL holiday in which all 32 teams come up with their best ideas to share their upcoming schedules. The rules are simple: at 8 p.m. ET, hit publish. The internet keeps score.
We’re going to keep our NFL Hall of Famer, Tom Brady, in the booth to analyze the actual games on the field. To analyze this virtual competition of creatives? We need a Hall of Famer from Madison Avenue.
Meet Gerry Graf, the Chief Creative Officer for SlapGobal, named “Most creative person in advertising” by Business Insider. Gerry has critiqued Super Bowl ads for the Wall Street Journal & Advertising Age. He’s basically the Tom Brady of analyzing sports creative.
[Related: What are the 10 best NFL schedule release videos of all time?]
We asked him to weigh in on NFL Schedule Release Day, to pick his favorites and tell us why. And he obliged! So, without further ado, enjoy “the most creative person in advertising’s” take on NFL Schedule Release Day.
The Browns were one of the worst teams in the league this past season and are projected to have one of the worst records in 2025, but they at least know how to make a good schedule release video. In their video, the Browns used their mascot, Brownie the Elf, and some visual effects to predict them taking down their opponents. During one moment of the clip, Brownie the Elf places an egg with the Baltimore Ravens logo in a pan and cooks it with cheese off to the side to represent the Green Bay Packers. There was also a moment where Brownie the Elf turned a plate of Skyline Chili into buffalo wings to show that they have back-to-back games against the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills.
If you look around the rest of the internet, some might not have been fans of the Browns’ video due to its unusual nature. But we and Graf like the video, partly due to the trippy nature of it.
“This one is really something to behold,” Graf said. “Brownie the Elf gets the starring role. He never made much sense to me as a mascot, and this vid is a mindbender too, which is the reason it’s one of my favorites. I didn’t realize northern Ohio had such a WTF attitude.”
Every year, it seems like at least a few teams recreate a popular video game to help unveil their schedule. The Falcons were among that group, creating “ATL Kart,” an obvious nod to “Mario Kart.” In the video, the driver goes through the difficult courses from the game, with Easter eggs to the side unveiling Falcons’ opponents in 2025. For instance, they poked fun at Bill Belichick’s recent interview with CBS and DeflateGate to show that they have the New England Patriots on their schedule. At the end, the Falcons win the race at Rainbow Road, beating their NFC South opponents. If you’re curious, they have the New Orleans Saints off the podium, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finishing second and the Carolina Panthers coming in third.
For Falcons fans, the video was likely as fun as it would be to drive on a course of whatever is the inverse of Rainbow Road. Admittedly, Graf said that he doesn’t know too much about Atlanta, so he didn’t grasp some of the local references. But he seemed to like the appearance made by Michigan alum Rich Eisen in the video.
“I watched it about five times trying to catch the tons of insider references that zoomed over my head,” Graf said. “Also, ‘Go Blue.’”
If you’ve been an active social media user over the last month or so, you’ve probably seen the video of social media personality and fitness influencer Ashton Hall doing his morning routine. The Jaguars tapped Hall to make a similar video for their schedule announcement, going through his typical morning routine of putting his face in a bowl of ice and water before recovering from a workout in a pool. Hall eventually took to the podium to be introduced as a member of the Jaguars during a press conference before the team’s schedule was placed over the video.
Graf is among the many of us who are also confused by Hall’s morning routine videos, but still get a kick out of them.
“This vid poses some important questions,” Graf said. “Is the schedule release video what Ashton Hall has been prepping for all these mornings? Or is Ashton a new free agent? I don’t know. I also don’t know why you’d wear socks in the pool and not with your shoes.”
The Jets claimed they were initially going to make a Minecraft-inspired video to announce their schedule. Instead, they announced theirs through an infinite zoom drawing. They also took some digs at their opponents, of course. The video began with a man sitting on a ketchup bottle in the middle of New York City to signal that the Jets are taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1 before the final zoom showed buffalo wings falling into Niagara Falls to share that they’re playing the Bills in Buffalo to close the regular season.
Each zoom had a personal touch to each opponent that the Jets have on their schedule this season, which Graf was a fan of.
“Probably one of the more thoughtful/artful vids of the day,” Graf said. “Details like a Bengal tiger protecting Skyline Chili kept me waiting to see what came next. I hope the Jets post an interactive version so I can pinch and enlarge all day. And I don’t know what the ducks meant in the Sopranos either.”
The Chargers’ media team did it again. They found a new, unique way to unveil their team’s schedule for the 2025 season, opting to make their video in Minecraft. What really puts the Chargers’ schedule release announcements over the top, though, are the Easter eggs they place in their videos. This year’s had no shortage of them. To announce their matchup against the Minnesota Vikings, they put in a banner that read “Best record among wild card teams” and another banner for the Minnesota Wild that read “8-time quarterfinal runner-up 2015-25.” For their matchup against the Indianapolis Colts, the Chargers took a dig at Anthony Richardson Sr., noting that he was running on empty, a nod to the controversy surrounding the quarterback last season. They also included new Jaguars head coach Liam Coen’s awkward introductory press conference, too.
It’s hard not to be a fan of the Chargers’ social media department’s work, even if they might take a dig or two at your favorite team. Even Graf couldn’t help but applaud the Chargers’ work, even if he thinks recreating a video game to announce the schedule has become a bit tacky.
“Video game-inspired schedule vids have become kind of a trope, but no one does them like the Chargers,” Graf said. “Incredible production value, I loved every world they jumped into. So the answer to the Chargers is: Yes! You should REALLY make your schedule release video in Minecraft.”
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