2012 NFL season

The 2012 NFL season, will be the 93rd regular season of the National Football League, is tentatively set to begin Thursday, September 6, 2012, with the defending Super Bowl XLVI champion hosting the annual Kickoff game; and will end with Super Bowl XLVII, the league's championship game, on Sunday, February 3, 2013, at Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

Schedule
The 2012 NFL Draft will be held from April 26 to April 28, 2012 at New York City's Radio City Music Hall.

Under the NFL's scheduling formula, the intraconference and interconference matchups will be: Intraconference

Interconference
 * AFC East vs. AFC South
 * AFC North vs. AFC West
 * NFC East vs. NFC South
 * NFC North vs. NFC West


 * AFC East vs. NFC West
 * AFC North vs. NFC East
 * AFC South vs. NFC North
 * AFC West vs. NFC South

What is known of the 2012 schedule is as follows:


 * NFL Kickoff Game: The entire 2012 season tentatively will begin on Thursday, September 6, 2012, at the home of the defending Super Bowl XLVI champion. September 6 is also the last day of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, which will be held at Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers, and the league has yet to announce if it will repeat what it did four years earlier, when the Kickoff Game was moved to 7:00 p.m. EDT, instead of its usual 8:20 p.m. EDT start, to accommodate the last day of the 2008 Republican Convention. As a result of the convention, the Panthers will very likely play on the road during the first weekend of the season.
 * International Series: The 2012 International Series game will feature the St. Louis Rams hosting the New England Patriots on October 28, at 1:00 p.m. EDT (5:00 p.m. GMT) on CBS, at the frequent International Series home—Wembley Stadium in London, England. This will mark the first of three consecutive International Series appearances for the Rams. Though the league had originally promised to add a second game in Ireland, Scotland, or Wales beginning in 2012, the league reneged on that promise for the second time in three years, this time citing the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as their excuse (the league had reneged on a second International Series game in 2010 as well, that time citing ongoing negotiations with the collective bargaining agreement).
 * Thanksgiving Classic: These games will occur on Thursday, November 22. The Detroit Lions will host an AFC team—either the Houston Texans or Indianapolis Colts—at 12:30 p.m. EST on CBS, while the Dallas Cowboys will host an NFC team, which is yet to be determined (the possibilities are the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the Chicago Bears), at 4:15 p.m. EST on Fox. The prime-time NBC game, featuring opponents yet to be announced, will be featured at 8:20 p.m. EST.
 * Bills Toronto Series. The fifth and, under current contract, final regular-season game of the series, which sees the Buffalo Bills play in Toronto's Rogers Centre, is still being planned. Due to a re-emergence of late-season attendance problems at Ralph Wilson Stadium, the Toronto Series is likely to return to its original December schedule, after the end of the 2012 CFL season. A preseason game will also be played as part of the series.
 * Christmas Eve: Christmas Eve falls on a Monday in 2012. The NFL tries to avoid scheduling games on the evening of Christmas Eve; however, in, a Monday Night Christmas Eve game between two western division teams was played at 8:00 p.m. EST (5:00 p.m. PST). The league may also choose to have an afternoon game on Christmas Eve, as it did in , when Christmas Eve fell on a Friday, although this will be dictated by the terms of the most recent contract extension agreed to in December 2011.
 * Playoffs: The last regular season games will be held on Sunday, December 30. The playoffs would then start on Saturday, January 5, 2013.  Conference championship games will be held on Sunday, January 20; the NFC Championship will be played at 3:00 p.m. EST on Fox, and the AFC Championship will follow at 6:30 p.m. EST on CBS. Super Bowl XLVII, the league's championship game, will occur on February 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, and will be televised on CBS.

The league announced that it will consider trying to avoid scheduling Thursday Night games in which the visiting team has to travel two or more time zones.

The opponents for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game will be announced sometime in February (likely at the same time as the announcement of who made it into the Hall), while the entire regular season schedule will be announced in April.

Media changes
On December 14, 2011, the NFL announced that the Thanksgiving game night will move from the NFL Network to NBC.

Also on that day, the league extended their contracts with their TV broadcasters through 2022, although many of new provisions (such as expanding flexible scheduling to allow the shifting of AFC and NFC games between CBS and Fox; and NBC giving up one of its two wild card playoff games in exchange for a divisional round game) will not take effect until 2014.

Uniforms
The Denver Broncos will switch their primary home jersey color from navy blue to orange. The orange jerseys that were the team's alternate colored jersey from 2002–2011 will become the primary home jersey, while the navy blue jerseys that were the team's primary home jersey from 1997–2011 will switch to alternate designation. The change was made due to overwhelming popularity with fans, who clamored for the team to return to wearing orange at home, which was the team's predominant home jersey color from 1962–1996.

Nike will now be the official uniform provider for the NFL, succeeding Reebok, which had a decade-long partnership in that capacity.