I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s not in the mix<\/a>,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s just that other things come up and you have a different reason for the scheduling. We obviously have a rotation involved that is the best as far as fair, complete competition year-in, year-out, around the entire league. But it\u2019s certainly something that I would look at. <\/p>\n\u201cAnd I wouldn\u2019t just narrow it down to Dallas and Houston. I\u2019d look at the entire league, you saw a game on TV [Thursday] night between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. They\u2019re in the same division, but those kinds of proximities, those kinds of \u2018my town against your town, and who\u2019s the best town?\u2019 Which I think is a fundamental of our game of football. \u2018My town against your town. My school against your school.\u2019 That\u2019s a big part of it. It\u2019s hard to emulate anyplace but in the United States to get that rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would have been a great way to deal with the 17th game. Instead, the league added an interconference game tied to a rotation of divisions and the spot at which the team finished in the prior season. Perhaps the geographic rivalries could become a feature of an 18-game season. (Or the inevitable 19-game season.)<\/p>\n
Beyond the Texans and the Cowboys, other no-brainer annual interconference rivalries would include the Jets and Giants, the Rams and Chargers, the 49ers and Raiders, the Ravens and Commanders, the Steelers and Eagles, the Buccaneers and Jaguars, the Titans and Falcons.<\/p>\n
There wouldn\u2019t be 16 natural fits, so the league would have to identify one annual rival for each team if it ever adopts that approach. Packers and Chiefs. Bears and Colts (especially if the Bears move to Indiana). Lions and Browns. Broncos and Seahawks.<\/p>\n
There would still be questions to answer. Who would the Bills\u2019 and Patriots\u2019 annual rivals be? Would the Vikings and Bengals become a geographic rivalry by default?<\/p>\n
The Dolphins would perhaps fit with the Saints or Panthers. The Cardinals would be lost in the wilderness.<\/p>\n
Still, the existence of a few forced rivalries would be more than offset by a cluster of annual games between teams linked by location. The league could even set the games for the same weekend every year, with a marketing slogan and special Nike uniforms.<\/p>\n
And, yes, the more it could be turned into a moneymaker, the more likely it would be to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since the Texans joined the NFL in 2002, they\u2019ve faced the Cowboys only seven times. The eighth meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-456381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}