Did NFL tip hand on Vikings-Saints?

A hat tip goes to Access Vikings reader Dan Bell for pointing this out.

While the NFL schedule won't be released until 6 p.m. today, Bell notes that if you go to the interactive schedules on NFL.com you find the Vikings-Saints game carries the NFL's "Kickoff 2010" logo with it. A quick check of a few other high-profile games did not show this logo, so we're wondering if what we all have been thinking for a few months is soon going to be official.

That would be the Vikings and defending Super Bowl champion Saints will meet on Thursday night, Sept. 9 in the regular-season opener and rematch of the NFC title game. If you want to check it out, go to this link and click on the path from Minnesota to New Orleans and you'll see the logo. (An NFL spokesman said in an e-mail that nothing should be read into this.)

It also should be noted that NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy put on his Twitter account that someone should ask commissioner Roger Goodell during a 1 p.m. chat on NFL.com today about the Saints opener. Perhaps, Goodell will be willing to reveal the Vikings-Saints matchup at that time.

On another schedule note, Goodell told ESPN Radio this morning that the league has scheduled exclusively division games for the final week of the 2010 regular season. "We actually have 28 divisional games in those last three weeks, as opposed to 15 for the 2009 season, and all 16 of the final Week 17 games will be divisional games," Goodell said on "Mike & Mike in the Morning" show.

Goodell said at the NFL owners meetings last month in Orlando that he wanted more divisional games in the final week of the season so that teams would be less likely to have key players sit out because their playoff position already has been clinched. Of course, this doesn't mean a team won't have its spot locked up but Goodell's thinking is there is a good chance divisional games will be of greater importance.