In 2024, when the Los Angeles Chargers created what became their viral “Sims”-themed schedule release video, several members of their social team sat in a room filming the New England Patriots matchup in the life simulation video game. The scene was a retirement home.
At some point, something strange started to happen.
“One of the Sims peed his pants because I guess we had him standing there for too long,” Megan Julian, the Chargers’ vice president of social media and digital marketing, told me. “And then he’d like go take a shower. We were all just sitting there, waiting for this little Sim [character] to go do his factor. Typically, this job and this course of is such a ridiculous factor.
“After which on the finish, when everyone will get to see [the video] and my boss is yelling from down the corridor, ‘Is it doing properly? Do individuals prefer it?’” Julian added. “We’re studying the feedback out loud. We’re trying on the Reddit threads to see what jokes individuals picked up on. I believe it simply brings us collectively in a extremely cool approach earlier than the season yearly.”
This is only one instance of how large the schedule reveal has grow to be in NFL tradition.
Over the previous a number of years, schedule launch day has grow to be generally known as the Tremendous Bowl for social media groups. Their movies are analyzed and ranked for the standard of jokes, nostalgic nods and popular culture references. Movies just like the Chargers’ anime creation in 2022 and the Tennessee Titans’ 2023 reel, during which they quizzed individuals on Broadway Road in Nashville on the logos of their opponents that yr, broke the web.
In 2019, the Atlanta Falcons’ schedule launch video paid homage to “Recreation of Thrones” by utilizing the cityscapes and mascots of their opponents. In 2024, the Patriots had Julian Edelman painting the title character in “Good Will Looking” in a parody of the Oscar-winning film set in Boston. That very same yr, the Los Angeles Rams had online game variations of Matthew Stafford, Puka Nacua and different star gamers recklessly drive across the cities of the crew’s opponents in a takeoff on “Grand Theft Auto.”
Forward of Thursday’s 2026 schedule launch, I spoke to leaders of the Chargers and Falcons’ content material groups about what it takes to make an incredible schedule launch video. Each franchises expressed an appreciation for the camaraderie and inventive freedom concerned.
“It’s an opportunity for inventive groups to form of let their hair down. It’s an opportunity for all golf equipment to form of use its proverbial one night time to roast, they usually roast and may be roasted and that’s simply a part of the enjoyable of it,” Falcons chief advertising and marketing officer Shannon Joyner advised me. “These movies actually do form of reside on their very own. … It’s really only a inventive exploration that doesn’t have any set guidelines or requirements that associate with it. I believe that’s what — in a constructive approach — lends to such a spectrum of 32 amazingly inventive concepts that every one have their very own distinctive taste.”
The Chargers started engaged on their 2026 schedule launch video in late January, not lengthy after their opponents have been finalized. Yearly, their video and social groups get collectively for an preliminary assembly, the place “upwards of 100” concepts are pitched, in keeping with Julian. Nothing is dominated out early.
This yr, the Chargers pared their concepts down to 5 themes after which examined the constraints and alternatives for every potential idea.
“You could possibly virtually say you’re burning plenty of time by doing that, however you virtually should be actually exhaustive on the pre-production to essentially know that you just’re hitting on the proper concept,” Tyler Pino, the Chargers’ vp of manufacturing, advised me. “And in order that course of might be essentially the most painful of all this.
“Then there all the time comes a second when everybody within the room — you don’t even must say it — is like, ‘That is it.’ … Then you definitely simply take off like a rocket ship,” he added. “From there, it’s like a Manhattan Mission. The crew is like ‘OK, like we gotta go.’”
There’s a problem of being “area of interest whereas additionally being broad” with the undertaking, as Pino put it. The video ought to communicate to your fan base, the NFL at massive and broader popular culture concurrently.
Each groups acknowledge that there have been jokes of their schedule launch movies that have been fully missed. Some jokes, thrown in on the final minute, land higher than anticipated. Others, which took plenty of time, do not land in any respect.
And a few issues that weren’t even meant to be jokes grow to be ones.
“I believe that’s simply the character of the beast,” Julian advised me.
The Falcons, who additionally started their schedule launch prep in January, have an preliminary assembly that’s an “organizational open invitation,” in keeping with Joyner — staff from the social media crew to the stadium excursions enterprise take part. This yr, Atlanta’s inventive crew concerned the franchise’s new soccer regime — head coach Kevin Stefanski, president of soccer Matt Ryan and normal supervisor Ian Cunningham.
“We do wish to use this second to tastefully name again to issues or honor issues, or that our followers will react to or that the web will react to,” Ryan Delgado, the Falcons’ director of digital platforms, advised me. “It’s necessary for us to form of suppose via that lens, however realizing that everybody has a unique model of that and the way that comes throughout is all the time going to be form of a problem for positive.
“It’s very troublesome to stay to 1 factor and you place your head down and search for months later and be like, ‘Right here it’s.’ I imply, that’s simply the way in which the web works and the way shortly issues transfer and no matter the brand new moments are and in case you’re in a position to combine these in there, then nice.”
New head coach Kevin Stefanski (left) and soccer operations president Matt Ryan have been built-in into the Falcons’ 2026 schedule launch video. (Picture by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Pictures)
Organizationally, the schedule launch video is “actually necessary” to the Chargers, per Julian. There’s an understanding that it could possibly assist the crew promote tickets and generate pleasure. No different inventive pursuit within the calendar yr takes as a lot time.
“Usually in social and video, we’re going actually shortly,” Julian advised me.
The Chargers had conferences on the schedule launch video 5 days per week courting again to February. That doesn’t embody all of the technical and inventive work that staff put in on the undertaking.
“It’s like making a sequel to something: You wish to make it greater and higher and subvert expectations of what individuals suppose we’re going to do,” Pino advised me. “Yearly we’re like, ‘How can we do that once more?’ Whenever you’re on the backside of the mountain, it’s fairly daunting, particularly while you don’t have the concept but. You all the time have doubt of can we truly pull this off once more? After which in some way, via us all simply form of being in rooms for hours and hours and hours and banging our heads towards the wall, we often get to a superb end result.
“It’s undoubtedly grow to be an even bigger factor than we’ve ever imagined.”
Joyner known as the schedule launch “the last word model and enterprise second.”
“The ground has been raised so, so excessive for what golf equipment are doing and the way you present up on today, the way you present up on this second,” Delgado advised me. “And also you’re naturally going to watch all 32 golf equipment and form of see what they did. Be taught from it. Strive to determine, ‘How did that occur? How did that come about?’ You’re all the time going to be type of a fan first or attempt to stroll your self via this and be capable to watch all of them as a lot as you probably can.”
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Pino sees the schedule launch video course of as rewarding. At no different level within the yr are there so many individuals engaged on one undertaking.
Earlier than publishing their video annually, the Chargers discover peace within the solutions to a few questions:
Did we like our course of?
Did we work as exhausting on this as we might to make it pretty much as good because it might have been?
The work on the 2026 schedule launch movies is now carried out. Tonight is the Tremendous Bowl for social groups.
“That final quarter-hour earlier than we launch the video, there’s all the time all of us within the room like actually nervous,” Pino advised me. “Like, ‘Oh, I don’t find out about this yr.’ It occurs yearly. And you then simply must form of launch it to the world and hope for the perfect.”
