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The length of a prophetic year:
The 70 "weeks" ("sevens") have to be "sevens of years" based upon the fact that the "decree" of Nehemiah 2:5 was set forth by the king "in the month Nisan...of the 20th year of Artaxerxes (444 B.C.) and "Messiah the Prince" was "identified" several hundreds of years after the "decree".
With 70 sets of "sevens" being required to be 70 sets of "seven years" by the historical facts, we have each "seven" being 7 X 360 days long (2420).
Daniel 9:25 says "from the going forth of the commandment to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be "seven sevens (7 X 7 = 49 -- 360 day years) and three score and two sevens (62 X 7 = 434 -- 360 day years)". This is 483 -- 360 day years, or 173,880 days.
To align the lunar (360 day years) and solar calendars (365.24219879 day years), we have to divide the 173,880 of lunar calendar days by the 365.24219879 days of the solar calendar year. Doing this we have 476 solar years. From 444 B.C. going forward, we would have a date of A.D. 33 for the time of "Messiah the Prince".
If Nehemiah meant "Nisan" in terms of "the first day of the month Nisan", the decree would have gone forth on March 5, 444 B.C. Going forward 173,880 days on the solar calendar would bring us to March 30, A.D. 33.
Passover, in A.D. 33 was on a Friday, 173,885 days from the going forth of the decree. Five days earlier (on the expiration of the sixth-ninth set of seven years), Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9) fulfilling the prophecy in the words of Daniel 9:26.
Then, Daniel 9:26 says "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself".
Then, Daniel 9:26 goes on to say that "the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary". This event occurred 37 years after Jesus was put to death (the A.D. 70 destruction of the city and the sanctuary by Titus and the Roman armies). This inserts a "gap" between the end of the 69th set of seven years and the beginning of the 70th set of seven years. Until the passing of the years after this destruction, no one knew that it would be more than 2,000 years before this 70th seven would begin.
Then, the coming of the prince, whose people destroyed the city and the sanctuary, will begin the 70th set of seven years with his confirmation of a covenant with many for one set of seven years. This is what is often called "the seventieth week of Daniel".