Opening Sunday is television first. The games are the programming.

Week 1 Sunday is the most honest thing American television still makes. It has a start time. It has a second window. It has a prime-time game that is allowed to run long. The rest of the fall slate will spend the next three months pretending a prestige hour is an event. This is an event because the clock is public.

The failure mode is the same every year: too many feeds, a red-zone chop that turns football into a trailer for football, a graphic that tells you what you can already see. The success is simpler. Pick a game. Let it be a game. Commanders at the Eagles in the late window is a regional story with national lighting. Cowboys at the Giants at night is a soap that happens to wear helmets. Score the broadcast as a broadcast. The standings can wait until Tuesday.

The product works when you pick a window. It collapses when you treat fourteen games as an obligation.