If you've already set your phone alarm for the 8 p.m. ET release of the NFL schedule on Thursday, you're going to want to change that to 7:30 p.m. ET, and that's because, for the first time ever, the league is going to release the schedule 30 minutes early. 

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell informed the league's 32 teams this week that they'll be allowed to release the schedule a full half-hour early on their individual team websites.

"For the first-time ever, each club may release its own game schedule on its owned and operated media platforms at 7:30 p.m. ET, 30 minutes before the NFL Network Schedule Release show begins at 8:00 p.m.," league spokesman Brian McCarthy told CBSSports.com. "Clubs can choose to release their schedule in any appropriate way they choose, while prominently promoting the national NFL Network Schedule Release show to follow, during which the full schedule will be released, analyzed and discussed."

The Big Lead was the first to report that the schedule would be coming out early. 

The NFL's decision to release the schedules early is a good one, and that's because half the fun of the schedule release is seeing how each team announces their opponents. For instance, in 2019, the Falcons went the "Game of Thrones" route to announce their schedule. 

And then there was the Chargers, who announced their entire schedule using stock footage. 

Each team has had 50 DAYS of quarantine to come up with some ideas for the schedule release, so this year's announcements should be entertaining. 

The bottom line is that you'll be seeing schedule release announcements start to pop up around 7:30 p.m. ET. If you don't have time to round up all 32 individual schedules, the NFL will be doing a full release at 8 p.m. ET on NFL Network. 

We'll also be covering the schedule release on CBS Sports HQ with more than six hours of live coverage. The fun will kickoff at 6 p.m. ET with a preview show, and then we'll be rolling until midnight. You can catch all the coverage on CBS Sports HQ by clicking here. 

To find out all the details you need to know about the release of the 2020 NFL schedule, including how to watch it, be sure to click here.