We’ve been getting an endless stream of e-mails from readers who want to know when the 2008 NFL schedule will be released.  Don’t take this the wrong way, but stop it.  Please.  Just stop it. 

Based on the current online schedule for NFL Network, it appears that the schedule will be released on April 17, at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

At that date and time, NFLN is scheduled to broadcast a two-hour version of its signature show, Total Access.  But Total Access usually doesn’t air until 7:00 p.m. EDT.  So, at a minimum, it’s a strong hint that there’s a special reason for the Thursday late afternoon show, which would be smartly timed to coincide with optimum at-work Internet traffic in all U.S. time zones.  In the East, we’ll be commencing “it’s not like I’m gonna get anything else done today” coast.  In the West, they’ll be emerging from the lunch-digestion daze.

The other possibility, as a reader has pointed out, is Friday, April 11.  At 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. EDT, NFLN is due to air “NFL LIVE EVENTS.”  The description, however, seems to refer to the re-broadcast of a Quarterback Challenge . . . from ten years ago.

However, to get maximum coverage of the schedule release, the league would be wise not to do it on a Friday afternoon.  The news would get lost in the shuffle over the weekend, and forgotten by Monday. 

We’re not sure why this is a big deal for NFL fans, but it is.  As to the 16 games played by each of the 32 teams, we already know the “who” and the “where”; the only thing we don’t know is when the ball will be kicked off to start each contest.  And yet we crave that last bit of knowledge.

Maybe fans want to see when their favorite teams will play in prime time.  Maybe they want to make plans for road trips.  Or maybe the release of the schedule is the first tangible evidence that we’ll eventually emerge from this morass of baseball and basketball and golf and hockey and eventually get back to the sport that really matters.