If you’ve been waiting patiently to find out when the NFL will release the 2017 regular season schedule, I have some bad news for you: you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer, because we still don’t know when that’s going to happen.

However, the league did decide to throw us all a small bone on Friday by announcing when the preseason schedule will be released.

Sure, it’s not even one-tenth as exciting as the release of the regular season schedule, but it is football and it does mean we can start circling things on our calendar.

So when will the 2017 preseason schedule be released?

Let’s just say that you should make sure to clear your schedule on Monday, April 10, because that’s when this thing will be dropping.

I’m not sure the league needed to turn the release of the preseason schedule into a television special, but they’re doing it anyway, because they love turning things into television specials.

Anyway, one thing we alreadly do know about the 2017 preseason schedule is that it will kickoff on Aug. 3 with the Hall of Fame Game between the Cardinals and the Cowboys. The league’s other 30 teams will begin their preseason somewhere between Aug. 10-13.

If you need a reason to look forward to the preseason, just think: it will mark the first time that the Chargers will be playing at their 30,000-seat soccer stadium.

It will also mark Brock Osweiler’s debut with the Browns, if he’s still on the roster in August. Can a bad quarterback save a bad team? Probably not, but it will be worth watching just to see if things turn into a trainwreck.

As for the regular season schedule, the league is reportedly hoping to release it sometime between April 17 and 21.