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Schedule Gate

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Back in 2004, my second season running Russell Street Report (then known as Ravens24x7.com), a friend of mine called to fill me in on a scoop.

The scoop concerned the Ravens’ schedule and apparently a friend of a friend who worked on Park Avenue in the NFL’s executive offices, had a copy of the Ravens 2004 schedule.

I jumped on it, posted the schedule and BOOM…it received attention and in some ways put our site on the map for many Ravens fans.

The schedule was spot on – flawless. I owed my friend a solid!

Fast forward to 2005. I received the same call around the same time and I responded the same way. No questions asked – I set up the schedule and put it on Ravens24x7.com.

What wasn’t the same was the accuracy. I didn’t know that it was mathematically possible to get all 17 weeks wrong – the bye week included.

Making matters worse, since we had established ourselves as a scheduling news breaker of sorts the previous season, fans took our post as gospel. Some suite holders, expecting at least some inside hints on the schedule prior to the public announcement, called the Ravens offices less than happy.

And then I got a call from the Ravens…

After some chastising that wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, I was told by the team’s PR staff: “Tony, if you think you have a scoop share it with us. If you’re wrong we’ll tell you. If you’re right we may confirm or not say anything. It’s then up to you what you choose to do with the information.”

On that day, I decided that “Breaking News” would not be our strength.

Sure every now and then we’ll contribute a breaking story, like the special treatment of the Cory Redding contract back in 2011 which was later lifted by a larger publication as their own (they know who they are). But when it comes to schedules, I’m out of the scheduling business.

ScheduleGate is a lesson I won’t soon forget.

That said I am comfortable predicting (with a mild degree of uncertainty) that if the league holds true to recent release date patterns, the schedule is likely to be announced between Tuesday April 21 and Thursday April 23.

And no, the friend of a friend didn’t tell me that.

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