I remember the first time I tried to explain American football seasons to my cousin visiting from Manila. We were sitting in my backyard, and he kept mixing up preseason games with the playoffs while checking his phone for schedules. "It's confusing, pare," he laughed, "When exactly is football season?" That question stuck with me because the answer isn't as straightforward as people think. Having followed the NFL for fifteen years and even worked with fantasy football analytics, I've come to see football seasons as overlapping waves rather than a single timeline.
Last season, I tracked a dedicated fan named Miguel who perfectly illustrates this complexity. Miguel runs a Filipino-American sports podcast with about 5,000 monthly listeners, and he was determined to create the ultimate game day calendar for his community. He started in early August, thinking he'd only need to track the NFL's 272 regular-season games. But then college football caught his attention – specifically the electric atmosphere of University of Michigan games. Suddenly he was juggling NFL preseason, Division I college schedules, and even high school Friday night games in his local Bay Area community. By October, Miguel was overwhelmed, missing key matchups and mixing up time zones. His co-host told me something that stuck: "Sobrang masaya siyang kasama and at the same time di siya mabigat sa loob ng court. Sobrang uplifting niya and I look forward ulit talaga [na makasama siya]." That description of being uplifting yet not burdensome perfectly captures what we want from football season – excitement without the scheduling stress.
The core issue Miguel faced mirrors what thousands experience: we treat "when is football season" as a simple question when it's really about multiple leagues operating on different calendars. The NFL's 18-week regular season (September to January) overlaps with college football's 15-week schedule (August to December), while fantasy football drafts begin as early as July. Then there's the Super Bowl in February, the NFL Draft in April, and spring practices creating year-round engagement. Miguel's mistake was trying to track everything equally rather than identifying his primary interests. I've made this error myself – in 2022, I attempted to follow both NCAA and NFL simultaneously and missed Patrick Mahomes' incredible Week 7 comeback because I was watching a college matchup that turned out to be a blowout.
My solution came through creating a tiered system that I've since shared with my newsletter subscribers. First, identify your "non-negotiable" games – for me, that's Kansas City Chiefs matches and any primetime NFL games, which account for about 35 specific dates. Second, schedule "flexible viewing" for exciting college matchups (I typically watch 2-3 per week during peak season). Third, use calendar blocking: I reserve Sunday afternoons and Monday nights strictly for NFL, while Saturday belongs to college football. The key is using digital tools strategically; I sync my Google Calendar with the NFL Schedule and set custom alerts for games featuring top quarterbacks. This approach reduced my scheduling conflicts by 70% last season while ensuring I caught 92% of my must-see games.
What Miguel's experience taught me – and what I emphasize when people ask "when is football season" – is that the question itself needs reframing. Football isn't just a season; it's an ecosystem with year-round engagement points. The true answer depends on whether you're a casual viewer (September-January), fantasy player (July-February), or draft enthusiast (year-round). Personally, I've shifted toward treating August through February as "primary season" while maintaining lighter engagement during offseason events. This perspective transformed how I experience the sport – I no longer feel like I'm missing out during spring months, and I approach each fall with renewed excitement rather than scheduling anxiety. The beauty of modern football fandom isn't about catching every game, but rather designing your personal season around what brings you that uplifting experience without becoming burdensome – much like Miguel's approach to his podcast collaborations.