NFL schedule to be released next week following sketchy sounding 'beta test'

The NFL's PR team announced on Friday that the league is finishing up the schedule, and will be able to release it next week. The date has not been determined, but Pro Football Talk has suggested Thursday would be the day.

PFT reported earlier this week on the potential Thursday, saying the schedule was done already. The NFL PR team countered that it was still being tweaked, and that led to this interesting tweet from PFT.

The schedule is done and has been done. In recent days, the NFL has been "beta testing" the schedule by circulating it to key owners.

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) April 17, 2015

The idea of circuiting the schedule to "key owners" strikes me as sketchy as all get out. I am sure there are legitimate reasons to do that, but the league does not exactly have a ton of credibility. At least in my mind. This just comes across as odd that only some owners would get to provide input on the schedule. I get that you don't want every owner giving their two cents, but I'm not sure I see why you'd only give some owners a chance to chime in.

We don't know which owners it is, but would it be at all surprising to find out it was guys like Robert Kraft and John Mara, who are tight with the commissioner? I'm skeptical about this, to say the least.