Pope Francis probably has a lot more on his mind than the 2015 NFL schedule.
You know, things like world hunger, issues of child abuse by members of his church and other such far more important concerns than which NFL franchise will play which other NFL franchise where, when.
That being said, Pope Francis still managed to influence the NFL schedule makers when they were putting together the 2015-16 slate of games, according to Peter King of Sports Illustrated.
Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput sent a letter to commissioner Roger Goodell on July 8 of last year requesting - respectfully, of course - that the NFL not hold a game in Philadelphia on Sunday of Week 3 this season because Pope Francis is scheduled to officiate a mass.
"Yes," NFL senior vice president of broadcasting Howard Katz said, per King. "The pope did influence the NFL schedule. My name may be Katz, but I wasn't taking any chances."
The mass held by Pope Francis is expected to draw an estimated two million people to the Ben Franklin Parkway outside The Philadelphia Art Museum.
The Eagles will head up the New Jersey Turnpike to play the New York Jets on Sunday, Sept. 27 instead.
It's really not a big deal that the NFL schedule makers accommodated the request of the Catholic Church, as Darin Gantt of Pro Football Talk notes that the NFL sent the Baltimore Ravens off on a road game for their season opener in 2013 because of a conflict with a Baltimore Orioles game and the fact that moving the game up would have caused it to land on Rosh Hashanah.
What's actually most interesting about King's report is the sheer volume of potential schedules Katz and his crew comes up with before finalizing one and the process they use to generate all the choices.
Per King, the NFL uses 136 computers which are in constant use by four men who commit four months of their time to figuring out the best slate of 256 NFL games.
Which iteration of the thousands of iterations did Katz and Co. eventually go with?
Why, No. 37,793, of course.
