"We're incredibly judicious and incredibly sensitive to flexing a game and all the dynamics that go into that," said Hans Schroeder, executive vice president and chief operating officer of NFL Media. READ MORE: Vikings' 2023 season schedule released: Here are the main takeaways Any game during Weeks 13-17 could be selected for the move to Thursday night, but the league said the bar for such a shuffle would be high. No team would be required to play more than twice on Thursday night in a season. The league could push a Thursday night matchup in that range to Sunday afternoon if there's a more desirable game, a mechanism currently in place for Sunday night and Monday night games. NFL owners approved Monday a flexible scheduling policy for Thursday night games on Amazon Prime Video, for Weeks 13-17 only and with at least 28 days' notice given to the affected teams. Now the league will have the power, albeit limited, to change the matchups. Thursday nights in the NFL have long been the most drastic feature of its made-for-TV schedule, a prime-time slot that raised concerns about player safety and produced plenty of competitive duds before it moved to a streaming-only platform. If it can be in Green Bay - no offense, Ed - we can be anywhere." NFL approves limited flexible scheduling for Thursday night games "The beauty as you've seen in the draft is that there's not a real barrier to hosting it," said Peter O'Reilly, the NFL's executive vice president for major events. The Packers first applied to host in 2016, and the NFL pushed them to answer questions about hotel space and transportation infrastructure. Now it's preparing to head to the league's smallest market. This year's draft brought more than 312,000 fans to Kansas City. More than 2.2 million people have attended draft festivities since 2015. After being held at various New York locations from 1965-2014, the draft has made stops in Chicago (2015-16), Philadelphia (2017), Dallas (2018), Nashville (2019), Las Vegas (2022) and Kansas City (2023). Next year's draft will take place from April 25-27 in Detroit. READ MORE: Legendary Vikings head coach Bud Grant's life celebrated at US Bank Stadium "I think it's very fair to say that no other community on the planet has as close of a nexus to the past, present and future of the game of football than Green Bay." "We're the smallest market in the National Football League by a wide margin, but we're a big community," said Ed Policy, chief operating officer and general counsel for the Packers. With an expected 250,000 visitors, the draft will be the largest event ever held in Green Bay, which has a population of 107,000. The draft and related activities will take place inside and around Lambeau Field and Titletown, the collection of shops and restaurants surrounding the stadium. The league announced the 2025 draft's location on Monday during its spring meetings. The NFL draft will be in Green Bay in 2025. "We just can't sit there and ignore that data." Green Bay to host 2025 draft The NFL essentially copied a rule that was already in place in college football. One reason for the recent increase in head injuries? The improved skill of kickers to be able to strategically hang the ball longer and higher in front of the goal line, allowing the coverage more time to make a tackle and keep the opponent's drive start deeper than the 25 for an end-zone touchback. Concussions on kickoffs occur more than twice as often as on plays from scrimmage, and that rate has risen significantly over the last two years. The NFL said its statistical models predict the return rate for kickoffs in 2023, under the new rule, will drop from 38% to 31% and that the rate of concussions on the sport's most dangerous play will be reduced by 15%. "We tend to get ourselves to the right place, but it's never that comfortable." I've seen these type of health and safety discussions," said Atlanta Falcons chief executive officer Rich McKay, who is chairman of the competition committee.
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