Week 13: Given the name value that both teams in the Sunday night game bring, the Packers’ win likely shuts the door on what little chance there was that it would be flexed out, leaving the Burrow-less Bengals against the Jaguars on Monday night. You could make the argument that the three-game gap between the Lions and Saints isn’t disqualifying and that it’s silly for me to think it would be better for the team with the better record to be worse when the worse team is still .500. The bigger problem, though, is that with Washington’s loss to the lowly Giants, flexing in Lions-Saints would leave Falcons-Jets and Dolphins-Trumps as Fox’s best options in the early window.
The other option would be to see if CBS can be convinced not to protect Broncos-Texans; the rest of the CBS slate is weak enough that Bengals-Jaguars might well be the best game on their slate if it’s flexed to them, but I’m not sure it’s worth it for any of the parties involved, especially since CBS would need a replacement 4:05 game. (In fact that might be the best argument in favor of a flex, as Broncos-Texans is clearly the second- or third-best of the Sunday afternoon games, and the best CBS game by a mile, but is limited in its distribution in the late singleheader; perhaps the LA teams can switch networks to improve Niners-Eagles’ distribution?) I could be wrong but I’m not sure the league is quite satisfied with the options available to them to pull the trigger on the first Monday night flex in a purely speculative move, even if we have pretty good reason to think the Bengals will stink without Burrow; the league has always been pretty conservative in its flexing decisions. Final prediction: No changes.
If NBC wants DEN/HOU, CBS would drop their protection so they could get GB/KC
The one thing left that helps a SNF move is CBS is not the doubleheader network. A LA network swap, as the Browns-Rams game would be a late West Coast game, would allow Fox to make its Niners-Eagles Game of the Week a true national game, give CBS a natural late game that is almost as attractive, and just as warm, as Broncos-Texans, improve the truly-putrid CBS early slot situation (Chiefs-Packers replacing the Chargers-Patriots), and give the Texans some national exposure that they won’t be getting the following week after the collapse of the Jets.
So with the Eagles beating the Chiefs on Monday Night Football I think now that Chiefs Packers will remain on SNF in week 13 unless NBC wants to go with either the Saints Lions or Broncos Texans. I think Jaguars Bengals will remain on MNF in week 13. We shall see what happens tomorrow.
I said it in the prior thread and believe my Pack winning this week locked in their SNF game vs the Chiefs, though we know there are better options.
No reason to screw the good folks of Duval County out of their MNF game because Burrow got hurt.
And Week 16’s TNF game (the only game to possibly be flexed in Week 16) has NO (5-5) @ LAR (4-6) and needs to be decided by Thursday, It likely will stay as is, but CLE-HOU, DET-MIN, and DAL-MIA do offer up some interesting options.
Fox will protect Cowboys games in Week 15 & 16. Eagles-Seahawks game likely will be moved to MNF in Week 15.
news flash
NOTHING IS GETTING FLEXED THIS YEAR. Period. The nfl has backed itself into a corner with the new rules. They have no idea what they are doing and are letting this play out as is. Look for more flexing next year as the nfl gets A better understanding of its logistics with the networks, rules, time frames etc… love what u do here fellas… but… pack it up for the season lol
JackYamada: Something worth noticing is that on ESPN’s broadcast of the chiefs’ schedule, they showed that their week 15 game would be on ESPN.. Obviously, things are subject to change, but not sure if it means anything.
A ONE: Yep, you’re right. Unfortunately we are all flex nerds and we like to think of scenarios that the NFL should do, but these rules do suck and definitely need tweaking.
Regardless, here’s the outlook..
Nothing’s getting flexed week 13.
Week 14:
Jets have been awful; no way Packers-Giants gets moved for Texans-Jets. Titans are home against the panthers next week, so expect them to get to 4-7 to be enough to keep their MNF spot against the Dolphins.
Week 15:
With Joe Burrow’s injury and the Denver Broncos’ streak, as of now, the Saturday schedule looks to me like:
1pm Vikings-Bengals
4:30pm Steelers-Colts
8:15pm Broncos-Lions
The problem with Eagles-Seahawks is I think that the Seahawks are going to lose their next two games against the 49ers and Cowboys, which will drop them to 6-6. That won’t be enough to move Chiefs-Patriots out. Also, is there a rule against teams playing 3x on MNF? That might factor in here. In short, don’t expect a flex, even if the patriots are 2-10.
Week 16 will have no changes. Saints-Rams is all right enough to stay on TNF. All networks except NFLN have good games in each window this week.
Week 17: honestly, if the packers are 6-9 or better, this game might not be moved from SNF. If they’re worse, let’s hope Dolphins-Ravens makes it, but that does leave CBS’s early slate pretty empty, which is an argument that a lot of you have used against a flex. But come on, why would we prioritize the first part of a doubleheader over Sunday Night Football on New Year’s Eve?? NFL, if you’re gonna make ONE flex this year, please be it this one. Other than that, I wouldn’t expect Jets-Browns to move.
Week 18: Bills-Dolphins and Falcons-Saints still look like the most likely division title games. Steelers-Ravens is one that could have large playoff implications, with PIT potentially fighting for their playoff spot and BAL fighting for the 1 seed. It’s also likely that we see the Chiefs on Saturday for the third straight year as they play for seeding while the Chargers are still a fun team to watch that could be vying for a playoff spot as well.
https://twitter.com/TomPelissero/status/1727070178360582463
Well how about that! Broncos-Texans is now being played at 10 AM Week 13, presumably getting Romo/Nantz on the call & ending up as the CBS game of the week
So Broncos Texans got moved from 305 on CBS to Noon in Week 13 as it looks like that will be the Jim Nantz Tony Romo game. So it looks like Chiefs at Packers will remain on SNF and Bengals at Jaguars will remain on MNF for week 13 despite no more Joe Burrow for the Bengals.
https://nflcommunications.com/Pages/Week-13-Flex-Scheduling—Dec.-3-Broncos-Texans-Game-Moves-to-1-p.m.-ET;-Panthers-Buccaneers–to-405-p.m.-ET-on-CBS.aspx
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-allowed-to-flex-monday-night-games-for-first-time-ever-heres-the-one-game-most-likely-to-get-switched/
This article…
The Nfl should just not schedule primetime games after Week 11 and try to balance the early schedule with intra/inter conference games. Heck get all the east/west travel out of the way. Late schdule can be conference and division matchups with less warm weather teams freezing for no reason.
Interesting move for Week 13. The DEN-HOU move was to actually get that game more exposure than being stuck in the late window single-header purgatory. It will now be 1 of 4 CBS games in the early window. CAR-TB is a good candidate to stick into purgatory. LOL.
What’s funny is that the Texans only had 1 game scheduled to not be played at 12:00 p.m. Central Time and this was THE game, so unless something changes later in the season, then all of their games will be on Sunday’s at noon Central.
Based on that article on cbssports.com interviewing Mike North, it does seem likely that the Texans won’t have all of their games in that time slot though.
Doesn’t seem like we’ll here about a TNF flex for Week 16 either, which is no surprise to me.
*Hear
https://twitter.com/SprungOnSports/status/1727427187517866318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1727427187517866318%7Ctwgr%5E546d20778b7ea7ca545eb07f83dc5d29f8e34489%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2F181j88l%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dtrue
Looks like Romo/Nantz have a week off, so Eagle/Davis will call DEN/HOU
What No Flex Again I’m Sick Of The Chiefs Cause I’m Sick Of Patrick Mahomes And I’m Sick Of The Packers. Who Want’s To Watch This Garbage What Is This No Flex Again Because Of Those Ray Rice And Adrian Peterson Investagations STOP BEING LAZY You People And GET YOUR LAZY BUTTS IN GEAR NOW .
Andrew:
I hear you, but I do think the Taylor Swift factor plays into why Chiefs-Packers was NOT flexed out. Too many of her fans will watch just because of who she is with. I never expected that game to be flexed out anyway.
One thing I would do New Year’s Eve is have ALL NFL games start one hour earlier than normal at Noon/3:25 PM ET with the SNF game at 7:20 PM ET. Yes, that would mean some games in the Central time zone starting locally at 11:00 AM, but college football has 11:00 AM starts all the time and even now we have 10:00 AM starts in the Mountain time zone in college football. The NFL could deal for ONE week with some 11:00 AM starts even if church groups complain because I think local authorities in many cities would rather have games be an hour earlier to allow for New Year’s celebrations (it also would allow for NBC to have what has become their special with Miley Cyrus the last two years to have it air as it has).
As for flex scheduling in general, I suspect there will be some modifications of the rules next season, and one thing I would do is have the opening game be on Tuesday night instead of Thursday on NBC to allow for potential compensatory prime time games in Week 1 for CBS (Wednesday) and FOX (Thursday) that would only be used in most cases if the NFL needed to the previous season do a protection override to move a game to SNF that was protected. One thing that does need to be remembered, however, is next season the College Football Playoff is expanding from four teams to 12 with two additional rounds of games and it is unknown right now how that is going to affect scheduling in general for the NFL, especially if the first round of the playoffs are scheduled for what is Week 15 of the NFL season.
Walt –
No… just no. I’m not gonna ask what you’re trying to do here making up hypothetical scenarios that would never ever EVER happen
Max:
The part about New Year’s Eve is my opinion. When this came up in 2017, the Ravens complained about the 4:25 PM start with their game for the Bengals because many fans didn’t show because they wanted to go to New Year’s Eve celebrations and I believe in many cases local authorities didn’t want a game moved to SNF resulting in that case there being no game that final Sunday (then of course it was the last day of the regular season which won’t be the case this time). Had that Ravens game been a 3:25 instead of 4:25 start, it might have made a difference in fans being there because the game would have ended one hour earlier, allowing for more time to get to New Year’s celebrations and might very well have proven the difference in the Ravens winning that game and making the postseason. That’s why New Year’s Eve should have games one hour earlier OR games that week played Saturday 12/30 save for maybe ONE game at 12:00 and the other at 3:45 on New Year’s Eve (and maybe a Sunday night game that kicks at 7:35 instead of 8:20).
As for the idea of starting the season with a Tuesday night opener, with a little more time to think of it, how I would do it is this:
Tuesday night opener on NBC
Wednesday and Thursday night games scheduled for ESPN/ABC in lieu of the second Monday games, but with a caveat that if necessary due to having to do protection overrides the previous season, those slots otherwise would serve as compensatory games in Week 1 for FOX and/or CBS, allowing the NFL to do ONE protection override from each network during the season. If a protection override happens, FOX or CBS gets one or if necessary both of those spots and ESPN gets the games back later in the season, either as second Monday night games or as late-season Friday night games. As noted though, the revamped college football playoff next season will likely force some changes with the NFL schedule anyway.
Adding:
Having prime time games Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Week 1 would allow the Week 2 game on Amazon Prime be between teams playing on normal rest rather than a short week and allow such teams to actually do three and potentially even four Thursday night games (if doing Thursday in Weeks 1 & 2) in such seasons (four and even five if doing Thanksgiving day and the Thursday after).
Ahhhh…..its that time of year again…Mr DeCario is ready to riot due to too many Packers games on Sunday nights and Walt has the Local Authorities worked up, with 60 Minutes and New Year Eve Shows in a tizzy and us needing to figure out how to add Cozi TV to our Rokus to watch second and third tier NFL games. Just waiting for the RVs to show up in stadium parking lots the night before for College Bowl games…..At least this year we shouldn’t have to worry about Giant season ticket holders staying up too late the last week of the season 😛 . Love You Andrew and Walt! 🙂 Happy Holidays To All!
Guys if we add Wednesday primetime games week 1 it will be very good because the local authorities will be able to air college football that Thursday night instead of stupid nfl. Also, we should screw up the weekly system so we can have a game everyday for the twelve days of Christmas instead of making the Christmas game Amazon prime “Thursday” night football on week 17.
Also, we should make week 18 have two wacky time slots so everyone can watch their favorite conference!!’
I think the Giants will beat the Patriots on Sunday and with the Packers beating the Lions yesterday in Detroit on Thanksgiving I think their week 14 matchup on MNF is safe. I think the Titans will beat the Panthers on Sunday which will likely mean their MNF game against the Dolphins will stay as well unless the NFL wants to swap Giants Packers for Jets Texans where both the Giants and Jets are scheduled to host their week 14 game at Metlife Stadium. The Jets unfortunately have become unwatchable ever since Aaron Rodgers went down with that Achilles injury 4 plays into his Jets Debut in week 1 against the Bills. Obviously Cowboys Eagles will remain as the SNF game and Bills Chiefs will stay as the CBS 325 game in week 14.
In other news, I just went to nflcommunications.com and saw that nothing has changed for the Week 16 TNF schedule and therefore, the Week 16 schedule should be final as originally set.
Right everyone?
I hope that everyone had a very nice Thanksgiving! I know that I surely wasn’t expecting my Packers to win yesterday in Detroit. 🙂
Hi, Jeff. Green Bay packers sure managed to beat Detroit lions at Detroit on thanksgiving. I doubt Green Bay will beat Kansas City chiefs at Lambeau SNF football week 13. It would’ve been nice that the regular season finale week 18 Packers vs. Lions at Lambeau field last season be either flexed to Saturday night on Monday night football ABC or on that Sunday afternoon at 3:25 pm game. Also, on that play before halftime on SNF packers vs. lions game at Lambeau, the referee should’ve penalized both on the lions offense number 70 and on the packers defense number 29 for shoving each other.
Howdy Brian,
I didn’t expect the Pack to win in Detroit on Thanksgiving, so I won’t rule out a win vs. KC in Lambeau in Week 13 SNF. 🙂
Have a great one Brian!