What goes into an NFL schedule release video? Inside the Rams' 'Napoleon Dynamite' hit

AFC EastBillsDolphinsJetsPatriotsAFC NorthBengalsBrownsRavensSteelersAFC SouthColtsJaguarsTexansTitansAFC WestBroncosChargersChiefsRaidersNFC EastCommandersCowboysEaglesGiantsNFC NorthBearsLionsPackersVikingsNFC SouthBuccaneersFalconsPanthersSaintsNFC West49ersCardinalsRamsSeahawksScores & ScheduleStandingsFantasyNFL OddsNFL PicksNFL DraftPodcastsNFL Newsletter2026 NFL ScheduleKey GamesBest Schedule Release Videos2027 NFL Free AgentsPower RankingsNFL Schedule The Rams' schedule release video began six weeks in advance and featured plenty of food. Los Angeles Rams Share articleAfter six weeks of planning a schedule release video, whittling a list of 12 concepts down to one, the Los Angeles Rams’ creative team finally landed on how it wanted to roll out this year’s list of games. It would be with plates of food. A plate of juicy steak. One with Buffalo wings. Another with tater tots. The schedule release video project has been a competition across the NFL in recent years. What used to be a more straightforward method of hyping up home events, primetime games and travel opportunities has morphed into a comedy battle. Billion-dollar franchises are stepping into a space perhaps most targeted to today’s younger audiences. And in doing so, they are walking the line between professionalism and humor, of generating content that fits a time and a place culturally — and, in cases like the Rams, transports back to another people can identify with. “This has become such a competition with teams that it becomes a bit of a burden that social teams and content teams put on themselves to try to put out the best schedule release video,” said Kurt Gies, the Rams’ director of social media and influencers. “A lot of social teams refer to it as the Super Bowl. I don’t think it is. I think the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl for us. “But it is putting something out there and having to get that feedback from fans about how they feel about your video and whether they think it was the best.” But even if it wasn’t the Rams’ Super Bowl, they weren’t going to approach it lightly. “We are always going to be as bold as possible in our content strategy,” said Marissa Daly, the Rams’ senior vice president of studios and marketing. “We are never going to be a department that rests on our laurels, ever. We’re going to compete with our own selves every year on everything. “Our success with the schedule release is, ‘Did we as an organization drive more eyeballs to the Rams’ schedule and, as a result, sell tickets?'” In recent years, the bar has been set by the other Los Angeles franchise. The Chargers have built a reputation for some of the most creative, out-of-the-box concepts, playing off cultural gold mines for younger audiences and packing a punch with jokes that can walk up to the edge of getting personal. A year after a Minecraft-themed approach, the Chargers built this year’s around the video game “Halo” and tapped into so many of the league’s running jokes and soundbites. They included a clip of Houston Texans quarterback CJ Stroud giving a “little bro” speech to Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and imitated Rams star Puke Nacua attempting to livestream from the team’s locker room, using actual soundbites that made the references clear even in a video game sketch. The Chargers’ social/video team is one of those that the Rams say see this moment as their Super Bowl. In their own video, the Rams gave the Chargers their flowers, showing a certificate of achievement for “Best Schedule Release Video.” The Rams watch every team’s videos to build their strategy for crafting their own the next year. This year’s hits featured the Chargers’, a Tennessee Titans one that mistook random people walking on Broadway for stars on the opponents, an Atlanta Falcons one that mimicked the “This is SportsCenter” commercials, a Carolina Panthers one that detonated opposing mascots and an Indianapolis Colts one that cracked jokes on themselves in a “The Simpsons” theme. The Arizona Cardinals released a video built with artificial intelligence that drew a highly negative response. And then the Green Bay Packers released a video with the caption, “Your AI slop bores us.” The Rams saw this year’s project as a sequel to a bigger one, which revolved around the NFL Draft, or a moment where the competition for unique and humorous video content isn’t quite as intense. This year, the Rams made a draft video themed around the movie “Friday,” involving the sons of Ice Cube and Chris Tucker reenacting scenes along with Rams players. They had to plan their schedule release video before seeing the fruits of the draft video concept. But when the “Friday” video — which they called “Thursday” to symbolize the day of the draft’s first round — reached viral levels with nearly 3 million views on YouTube and nearly 7,000 shares on X, it set a higher internal bar to meet. The social and video teams started with a list of 12 ideas around six weeks ago, then cut it to six, then to two. But the lane of a 2004 movie that has spawned memes and running one-liners became a natural follow-up to the draft spoof on “Friday,” as well as last year’s schedule release video concept involving Brenda Song. “There is a lot of fanfare in nostalgia,” Daly said. “Does that mean we’re always going to lean into nostalgia? No. But when they came to me with a bunch of the ideas, it felt like this fit really nicely into what we’ve been doing. It’s a unique way to do it. It’s different than we’ve ever done before.” The first step after selecting a concept is to organize a budget. The schedule release video typically makes up a small fraction of the Rams’ creative marketing budget for a calendar year, but costs can vary based on the scenes and props needed and, primarily, the licensing. For this concept, the Rams’ legal team needed to obtain creative rights from the creators of “Napoleon Dynamite” as well as the White Stripes to use the song “We’re Going to Be Friends.” As expensive as obtaining rights can be at times, not obtaining them and producing a video anyway can be costlier. The Colts ran into this issue last year, when they deleted their Minecraft-themed video after not securing copyright privileges. Every company prices these rights differently. Some will ask to see the production before signing off on having their product associated with it. That can play into the line teams walk of being humorous and memorable without veering into topics that are too corny or controversial to age well. “It’s more about being tongue-in-cheek and humorous and getting a reaction, but we tend to not attack any one person,” Daly said. “Players’ names and families and those types of things tend to be over the line. There are some opponents we can have a little more fun with just because we have that relationship back and forth or because of the history of the rivalry or the matchup.” The jokes originate in meetings between the social and video teams and then get pressure-tested by the marketing team and upper levels of Rams leadership. The goal isn’t just to desensitize them. They have to keep them humorous and also vary the jokes so that they work across a spectrum of different audiences at a time when engagement and audience reach is high. They also have to walk a line between making a video long enough to cover 17 different games — tapping into a larger appetite for video this time of year — and not making it too long in an age of scrolling and distractions. This year’s video ended up at 3 minutes and 26 seconds. It involved filming 17 different takes of opponents and weeks, as the team knew its opponents but had to wait on the NFL to provide the actual dates and times this week. A Dynamite schedule. pic.twitter.com/5BnNs0ZGpw — Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) May 14, 2026 “We’re posting this across social, so we’re understanding what our demographic looks like across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and the like,” Gies said. “We’re trying to make it as generalized as possible so that you can have references that maybe Gen Z understands but an older generation doesn’t, or a reference that millennials get that others don’t. We’re trying to make it as universal as possible.” The Rams landed on a few zingers in this year’s video. For Week 14 against the San Francisco 49ers, they showed a book titled “The Electromagnetic Field,” referencing the electrical substation near the 49ers’ facility that some linked to their injury issues. (The author was “Dr. Nothingburger,” alluding to GM John Lynch’s description of the findings of the team’s tests.) For Week 4 against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Rams used mustard to spell out “ELGSES,” a play on when Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker misspelled the team name in a chant at the Super Bowl parade. The deeper the Rams’ rivalry with a franchise, or the closer the relationship they have with a franchise’s creative team, the more they can push a joke. But the goal is still to avoid anything personal. Last year, the Colts made a joke about Tyreek Hill following his detainment and claims of police brutality in Miami and released an apology afterward. The Colts then took a jab at themselves in this year’s Simpsons-themed video, having Bart Simpson write lines on a chalkboard saying, “We will not include Tyreek Hill in these videos.” Some schedule release videos aim to be remembered, like the Chargers’ or the Titans’. Others try to avoid being remembered for the wrong reasons. The Rams’ goal was to fit a time and space in a video that could motivate ticket sales but live as a secondary piece to the one they produced for the draft. Their real Super Bowl is the one taking place at SoFi Stadium next February, a game they hope their team will be playing in. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms