Each spring, five NFL executives take on an enormous task: creating the NFL schedule for the next season.

Story Highlights The schedule makers create thousands of possible schedules before picking the final version.

The NFL uses a rotation system to make sure each team plays one another at least once every four years.

Flexible scheduling helps showcase the best late-season matchups to the largest audiences.

The schedule makers consider bye weeks and travel to maintain competitive equity.

The NFL schedule makers — Senior Vice President of Scheduling Howard Katz, Senior Director of Broadcasting Blake Jones, Director of Broadcasting Charlotte Carey, Vice President of Broadcasting Michael North and Vice President of Broadcasting Onnie Bose — must consider the fans, the league’s broadcast partners and many other factors when building the 256-game schedule that spans the 17 weeks of the NFL season and showcases the league’s best matchups and talent.

They have to work around events that are already scheduled to take place in or near NFL stadiums — events that may compete with the games, put undue stress on the playing surface, or create traffic or logistical nightmares. The league begins collecting information from the clubs in January about any events that may create scheduling conflicts.

They are also constrained by internal factors. A formula determines each team’s opponents every year, and a rotating schedule ensures that every team plays each of the other 31 at least once in a four-year period.

It takes hundreds of computers in a secure room to produce thousands of possible schedules — a process that sets the stage for the schedule makers to begin the arduous task of picking the best possible one.