The NFL schedule was released last night, and now we can all put the teams and players where they'll be each week of the season. Maybe you shouldn't let it affect your draft strategy too much, since things change a lot from year to year and people get hurt, benched, or suspended, but it's an extra thing to look at when building your fantasy team.

Peter King has a pretty interesting column about how the schedule gets assembled, and the myriad challenges that most people might not even think about. Baseball playoff schedules, San Francisco-area traffic patterns, and college football games all factor in. ESPN has a nifty schedule grid. Here are a few fantasy tidbits.

Early bye weeks: The Cardinals, Bengals, Browns and Broncos have bye weeks in Week 4. I'm thinking elderly Peyton Manning would have preferred a late-season bye, but no such luck. If you're locked in on Matt Prater or the Broncos defense, you'll need an alternative early on.

Late bye weeks: In Week 12, the Panthers and Steelers are on their bye, so you won't have Cam Newton, LeVeon Bell or Antonio Brown those weeks. Better than last year, when four teams were on bye. In Week 11, the Ravens, Cowboys, Jaguars and Jets are on bye. Those late byes give me additional interest in those kickers and defenses, the good ones anyway. The Panthers D, certainly, and Baltimore's kicker.

Fast starts: The Eagles' first three games are against the Jaguars, Colts and Washington. Maybe they'll be better this year (the Jaguars in particular added some defensive line talent), but all three were ranked in the bottom half of the league in total defense last season. The Saints play the Falcons, Browns, Vikings and Cowboys in the first month. The Patriots also appear to have a favorable early schedule: Dolphins, Vikings, Raiders, Kansas City.

Slow starts: The Browns open against the Steelers, Ravens and Saints before a Week 4 bye. All those teams figure to have aggressive, attacking defenses, and Cleveland may be starting a rookie quarterback, or Brian Hoyer. The Bears play at San Francisco, Carolina and the Jets in the first five weeks. Baltimore will try to improve its bottom-ranked running game (in terms of yards per carry) a year ago with a seemingly unfavorable early schedule. Its first four games are against its three divisional foes and Carolina.

Tough finishes: The last three weeks, Arizona plays its three divisional foes: Rams, Seahawks, 49ers. Week 17 doesn't matter in most leagues, but it's not a great looking fantasy playoff slate. Look who else grades out poorly: the Browns, who close with the Bengals, Panthers and Ravens.

Favorable finishes: If you're into having players from Week 15 and 16 games, look to the NFC East. Dallas plays the Eagles and Colts before closing against Washington. The Eagles play the Cowboys and Washington. The Giants' last six games are against the Cowboys, Jaguars, Titans, Washington, Rams and Eagles.

By the time these games roll around we'll have different views of some of these offenses and defenses, especially the late games. But it's fun to take a quick trip through the schedule anyway, and see which offenses you may (or may not) want to target.

--Andy Richardson