The NFL released schedules for the 2024 season on Wednesday. Here are early thoughts on what’s in store for the Caroilna Panthers this season.

Hi, from WRL News headquarters in Raleigh. Your number one source for local news WRL news coverage you can count on. Hey, thanks for watching Wrel News Plus, I’m Grace Holland. In the last 30 minutes, the NFL released its schedule for the 2024 season. Here’s a look at the Sunday night football schedule for NBC. Of course, you’ll be able to catch all of these on Wrel later this fall. So far, that schedule doesn’t show any match ups for the Panthers that will air on that network still be lots of opportunities to watch some great games. You can take a look at the full schedule on our website on WRL Sports fan.com and while you’re checking that out, Wrel Sports, Luis Fernandez is here with me and he’s got some insights on what all of this means for the new season. So Lewis first impressions after seeing the schedule. Well, you kind of mentioned there a little bit, Grace. You didn’t see the Panthers on Sunday night football. In fact, the Panthers do not have any prime time games this season, which is kind of expected when they go two and 15 and finish with the worst record in football. Um, w which, you know, not to, not to throw any shade there, but it’s just, it’s just the facts. Um, they will have one stand alone game that is, uh, the game in Munich, Germany against the New York Giants that is on November 10th at 9:30 a.m. That’s week 10. So that’s obviously a big deal for the Panthers and, and something to watch for there. Um, when I look at the rest of the schedule, a few things I’m noticing is you see, uh, their schedule here posted by the Panthers Twitter account. Um, you know, they start things off with a road game at New Orleans. So getting a little bit of a NFC South division game going there, uh, when you look at that first half of the schedule before they’re by, uh, one thing that people talk about a lot with the Panthers is the decision to trade away picks to go get Bryce Young when, you know, you possibly could have gotten Caleb Williams, uh, at the beginning of this draft. So they will face the Bears and Caleb Williams at Chicago two, number one picks going at it. That’s gonna be week 5 October sixth at 1 p.m. Uh, and, and when you look at that schedule too, there are some really interesting matchups, especially in the latter half of the year. They face a lot of playoff teams or teams that made the playoffs. Uh, you finish two games there, uh, at Tampa Bay, another divisional game, December 29th and then at the Falcons, um, the Falcons game, it’s the final game of the season for the Panthers and right now it’s scheduled, it says TBD. Uh, we do not know a lot of times. NFL will kind of keep all those games at the very end of the season to be determined. And if it ends up being an important game for the playoffs, they may bump it up to, uh the prime time, but one of the big takeaways for sure. Grace, no prime time games for the Carolina Panthers next year, at least for now. Yeah, but it sounds like some exciting matchups, certainly as we get later into the season. So that’s exciting. Another big thing that people get excited about when we’re talking about the schedule releases the social media videos that the teams put out. So, what have we been seeing on that front? So the, uh, the Panthers, if we want to stick with them, uh, they actually did a funny one where they had, um, the, uh, they, they did like a trying, trying to describe tiktok trends outside Tik Tok always makes you seem old. Here we go. But, uh, they did a video where they had some of their players, uh, paint pictures of each other, paint paintings of each other. Uh, and uh, they turn turned out exactly how you thought, uh, here as you see on your screen, Xavier Le get, you know, I would recommend stick with your day job, stick with your day job. Uh So they, they had their players paint each other and then they put it up on graphics just like this. So, you know, um th those kind of things are always fun. I saw the L A Chargers. Uh They did kind of like a Sims video if you will uh which was, was pretty good as well. Um So a lot to, to look at there with the, with the NFL, their reactions are always fun. I’m, I’m actually kind of, I have affinity for what the Chargers do for the most part on these, from the Steelers, the Steelers. OK. Looks like some sort of some of this we’re reacting to, oh Dad Joe, I’ve got a lot of different things here. I love this. You see Russell Wilson, former NC State Wolf back, uh great. He’s gonna be uh at least in competition if not getting the starting quarterback job for the Pittsburgh Steelers this season. A lot of local ties for these a lot. I the they’re always, these videos are always so great, they’re always so fun. Um You know, the, the uh social teams for each of these uh teams really get to flex their creative muscles if you will. So, um but it’s, it’s, it’s always a good time, definitely. And one thing I also wanted to ask about, you know, we look at how this announcement was made today. We look at some of the games last season going into next season. A lot of them, not on regular TV, but kind of in the space. A lot of you guys are watching us right now on streaming. So what do you think that says about where we’re headed with viewing sports games? So it’s, it’s really interesting. Um, you know, for, for a long time, you know, you could do NFL Sunday ticket or whatever it might be, you get to purchase and watch all the games from that perspective. Now, we’re starting to see a lot of different folks get in on that NFL streaming action. The NFL makes so much money. It’s a huge organization so many people watch. Um So for, we were announced today, uh two Christmas Day games for the NFL uh will both be on Netflix. Uh which is, that’s a first you Netflix start to get into the live, I would have never thought 10 years ago to watch a football game on Netflix. Right. Exactly. That, that’s, that one’s wild, that kind of, to me kind of, eh, in this whole new era, but we saw Thursday night football now on Amazon Prime. Uh We’ve seen uh Peacock, uh you know, shout out to NBC getting into the mix as well. Um hosting some of their games um exclusively on Peacock. So, you know, even the, the Panthers game that’s gonna be in Munich. I I would need to check this. But uh one thing to keep in mind for these games is a lot of those international games air on either ESPN plus or NFL plus, which is even the NF L’s own streaming channel. So the way we consume sports is, is changing, is shifting in the NFL is like it is for most things probably going to be on the forefront of that, right? But either way, I’m sure a lot of people will be watching. Uh Thanks for being here this evening with me, Louis and breaking all of this down. Great insight as all I wanna take you out to a live look over downtown Clinton looking a little wet there on the roads. Of course, we’ve seen a lot of rain this evening. It is starting to move out with that Wral weather alert day ending in the last hour or so and that rain as it leaves is gonna bring in cooler temperatures tomorrow. Meteorologist, Amy Wilmoth has a look at today’s forecast followed by more top sto stories we’re following on Wrel News. Plus.