NFL Flexible Scheduling Watch: Week 6

Note: This post (mostly) does not reflect the result of the Thursday night game.

It’s time for another year of the Flex Schedule Watch, and as I alluded to in May I’m rolling out new HTML tables for the weekly display of games, even though two of the reasons I cited back then didn’t pan out. WordPress technically has a dedicated block for tables, but it also hijacks a lot of the HTML behind them, replaces some functions with its own custom code, and rejects some perfectly valid HTML if it doesn’t do things the way it wants to, which wouldn’t be quite so bad if the formatting options below the level of the entire table weren’t so limited. On its own, that would be enough to lead me to use a “custom HTML” block for the tables. The resulting table is narrow enough that I decided I wanted to have the body text wrap around it, and to avoid running into the same problem that frustrated me with the old graphics I ended up resorting to exploiting code WordPress normally only uses to support the classic editor. That could have allowed me to keep the table without resorting to the classic editor for the rest of the post, but the table is also wide enough that the text can’t squeeze in between the tables, and WordPress hijacks the HTML that would normally force the body text below any tables on the same side and I don’t know if it even has its own way of doing that, so classic editor it is.

Still, the point about screen readers remains valid, and this format allows me to include more and more descriptive notes, which is important when considering how complex and overlapping all the different factors I wanted to cover there were becoming – see the places where I noted Thursday or Monday night games in preceding or following weeks on the May post. (The main factor that convinced me to stick with this format and not go back to the previous format was just how difficult it was going to be to keep track of everything in Weeks 15 and 16 in particular. If I do ditch this format, I may still change how the weekly graphics look compared to last year.) Beyond that, I want to see how hard or easy, or fun, this will be to maintain compared to the previous system. Getting the graphics from the last couple of years to look the way I want in Excel was harder than it looked, because of a confluence of factors involving how Excel supports pictures and other visual elements that aren’t part of the cells themselves, as well as how varying border widths affects the whole spreadsheet. (Last year’s Week 15 graphics, which started with three rows of flexible windows instead of two, had to be worked on on an entirely separate set of rows from the rest of the graphics.)

This does mean I’ll have to update the team records and equivalent of the Buzzmeter manually, though, which could result in this approach taking longer than the previous system, but I could still end up deciding it’s worth it if I enjoy it more than wrestling with Excel, especially since I did something similar before with the Playoff Pictures – although it might not be a good sign that I’m probably still going to use static images for those. (Also, I’ve seriously been considering not ordering the flex candidates by quality and instead ordering them according to the order they’re in on the NFL web site, freeing me from having to copy-and-paste rows manually.) Ultimately, I consider this an experiment in whether this approach will work going forward, though I’m already not optimistic. Still, I went to all the trouble to put together new team-logo graphics and even graphics for each individual featured window, so I might as well get some use out of them.

Speaking of the Buzzmeter, because of the limitations of HTML – as, to my knowledge, I can’t crop an image with HTML alone – what I’ve done is color the background of the notes section from red to yellow to green based on the record of the worse team in each game. I was going to put a colored circle between the teams but it wasn’t big enough for the color to stand out. I’m still not completely happy with this, though, and I might end up deciding to add a blank column, either between the teams, on the far left side, or between the timeslot/broadcaster logo and the team logos. I welcome any input you might have as to what might work best.

How NFL flexible scheduling works: (see also the NFL’s own page on flex schedule procedures)

• Up to two games in Weeks 5-10 (the “early flex” period), and any number of games from Week 11 onward, may be flexed into Sunday Night Football. Any number of games from Week 12 onward may be flexed into Monday Night Football, and up to two games from Week 13 onward may be flexed into Thursday Night Football. In addition, in select weeks in December a number of games may be listed as “TBD”, with two or three of those games being assigned to be played on Saturday. Note that I only cover early flexes if a star player on one of the teams is injured.
• Only games scheduled for Sunday afternoon, or set aside for a potential move to Saturday, may be flexed into one of the flex-eligible windows – not existing primetime games or games in other standalone windows. The game currently listed in the flex-eligible window will take the flexed-in game’s space on the Sunday afternoon slate, generally on the network that the flexed-in game was originally scheduled for. The league may also move Sunday afternoon games between 1 PM ET and 4:05 or 4:25 PM ET.
• Thursday Night Football flex moves must be announced 21 days in advance. Sunday and Monday Night Football moves must be announced 12 days in advance, except for Sunday night games in Week 14 onward, which can be announced at any point up until 6 days in advance.
• CBS and Fox have the right to protect one game each per week, among the games scheduled for their networks, from being flexed into primetime windows. During the early flex period, they may protect games at any point once the league tells them they’re thinking of pulling the flex. It’s not known when they must protect games in the main flex period, only that it’s “significantly closer to each game date” relative to the old deadline of Week 5, but what evidence exists suggests they’re submitted within a week or so of the two-week deadline; what that means for Thursday night flexes that are due earlier is unclear.
• On paper, CBS and Fox are also guaranteed one half of each division rivalry. However, in 2023 some Week 18 games (see below) had their other halves scheduled for the other conference’s network, though none were scheduled for primetime, and this year there’s another such matchup and another matchup that has one game on the other conference’s network and the other in primetime.
• No team may appear more than seven times in primetime windows – six scheduled before the season plus one flexed in. This appears to consider only the actual time the game is played, that is, Amazon’s Black Friday game does not count even though the rest of their TNF slate does. This post contains a list of all teams’ primetime appearances entering the season.
• Teams may play no more than two Thursday games following Sunday games, and (apparently) no more than one of them can be on the road without the team’s permission.
• In Week 18 the entire schedule, consisting entirely of games between divisional opponents, is set on six days’ notice, usually during the previous week’s Sunday night game. One game will be scheduled for Sunday night, usually a game that decides who wins the division, a game where the winner is guaranteed to make the playoffs while the loser is out, or a game where one team makes the playoffs with a win but falls behind the winner of another game, and thus loses the division and/or misses the playoffs, with a loss. Two more games with playoff implications are scheduled for Saturday on ABC and ESPN, with the remaining games doled out to CBS and Fox on Sunday afternoon, with the league generally trying to maximize what each team has to play for. Protections and appearance limits do not apply to Week 18.
• Click here to learn how to read the charts.

2025 Week 11 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	3-3	4-2	@KC: TNF
	4-2	4-2
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (11/16)
	5-1	4-2
	4-2	4-2
	4-2	4-2	@SEA: TNF
	3-2	3-2	@CHI: MNF
	3-3	3-2

Week 11: Under the new flex scheduling regime, Week 11 doesn’t really feel like a flex scheduling week anymore. The Sunday night game brings a potentially great matchup, maybe even a playoff preview, between the Lions and Eagles, yet the 3-3 Chiefs have beaten both teams in that game to establish themselves as Super Bowl contenders yet again, with their game against the Broncos potentially helping set the pecking order in the AFC West. Meanwhile, TNF is stuck showing the winless Jets while MNF is showing two two-win teams languishing below .500, but neither game can be flexed out this early despite a number of potentially appealing games on the Sunday afternoon slate. Granted, the Bills have two short-week games so CBS would be able to protect Chargers-Jaguars and keep all three of their games between teams at or above .500 from moving to Thursday, and “Cowboys uber alles” would probably apply to the Monday game.

2025 Week 12 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	4-2	2-3-1	@PHI: NBC
	5-1	4-2
	3-3	3-3
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (11/23)
	3-2	3-1-1	@MIN: W18
	4-1	3-2	CHI: Fri W13
	5-1	3-3	KC: 7 PT
	2-4	4-2	DET: Thu W13
	4-2	2-4	CIN: TNF W13
	4-2	2-4

Week 12: “Cowboys uber alles” might not necessarily save Eagles-Cowboys from no longer being the late featured game this week, though. If the Cowboys’ weak defense continues to drag them down too much, and the Vikings continue to keep their head above water, could we see a repeat of last year’s Week 17, when Fox swapped out Cowboys-Eagles for Packers-Vikings, only with the home teams swapped? Color me skeptical considering how long it took them to pull that swap, long enough that Cowboys-Eagles might have kept its spot if it weren’t for the possibility of the Cowboys being eliminated from the playoffs before game time, which isn’t a factor this early.

Meanwhile, with this being the week before Thanksgiving, there’s only one game involving only teams at 2-4 or better that’s likely to even need to be protected from a move to Monday, so even if the Panthers’ .500 record turns out to be a mirage ESPN is likely stuck with it, as I predicted back in May.

2025 Week 13 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	4-2	4-1
	4-2	3-3
	2-4	4-2
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (11/30)
	3-2	4-2
	4-2	3-3	CAR: W12 MNF
	2-3	5-1	@HOU: W18
	2-4	5-1
	2-4	4-2	@LV: TNF

Week 13: With two wins over good teams there’s some hope that the Giants might actually be interesting with Jaxson Dart. If not, though, this might be a game in real danger of a flex. Thanksgiving means a paucity of good games on the Sunday slate, but even if the league didn’t want to give the Panthers consecutive Monday night games, Fox can only protect one of Vikings-Seahawks and Cardinals-Bucs, and my impression is that the Cardinals are better than their record. Right now the tentative game bias mitigates against a flex, but if the Giants stumble while the Cardinals surge, that could be a different story. The good news is that the Cardinals have a tough schedule the next few weeks, though, with the Cowboys the only team with a losing record between now and when the decision would be made.

2025 Week 14 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	2-3-1	4-2
	2-4	4-2
	2-3	3-3	6-day flex
	4-2	4-2
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (12/7)
	5-1	4-2	@IND: FOX
	3-2	3-1-1	TNF-safe (CHI BF, GB TG)
	4-2	3-2	ATL: W15 TNF
	3-3	3-2

Week 14: Fox’s triumphant embrace of an all-AFC matchup in their featured window has run headlong into the reality of yet another injury to Joe Burrow. Granted, Joe Flacco’s upset win over the Steelers (not reflected in the tables) raises the prospect that they just might be able to keep their head above water through the middle of the season, and their next couple of games (at home against the Jets and Bears) are eminently winnable, but it might not take much for Fox to crawl back to their NFC security blanket in the form of the league’s oldest rivalry. Certainly Fox may have to decide which game they want to roll with if the Texans continue to struggle, because any of their games involving teams at or above .500 could be sent off to Sunday night. In fact, one thing I didn’t realize in May is that with the Bears playing on Black Friday, the league just might be okay with Bears-Packers being flexed into Thursday night and keeping the regular-rest component of the week-after-Thanksgiving game, though I would fully expect “Cowboys uber alles” to carry the day.

2025 Week 15 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	3-2	5-1
	4-2	4-2	LAR: W16 TNF
	3-1-1	4-2	GB: W16 Sat
	3-2	2-3-1	6-day flex
	1-5	4-1
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (12/14)
	5-1	4-2	SEA: W16 TNF
	4-2	4-2	@BUF: SNF
	4-2	3-3	v. LAC: YT
	3-3	2-4	WAS: W16 Sat
	2-4	4-2	PHI: W16 Sat
	2-4	2-3	TNF-safe

Week 15: When the Falcons held the Vikings without a touchdown earlier this year, I saw a few people responding to the observation that the next opportunity to see NBC’s new touchdown graphic for the Vikings would be in December by noting the possibility that that game could be flexed out. Leaving aside that the Vikings have managed to enter the first week of the Flex Schedule Watch over .500, I didn’t recognize at the time that the game being referred to involved the Cowboys, making a flex highly unlikely in any case, or that it was a week I’d identified as having little in the way of realistic flex options.

I worried in May that the only thing preventing the league potentially being stuck with Vikings-Cowboys as its Sunday night game from being a failure to schedule with flex scheduling in mind was “Cowboys uber alles” meaning it was unlikely to lose its spot anyway, but that was before the Dolphins entered a tailspin and spiraled into full-fledged dysfunction, creating a potential need to flex out of a game in a slot that’s that much harder to flex a game into. CBS’ divisional matchups were bad enough, but they don’t even need to protect Packers-Broncos or Colts-Seahawks thanks to those games involving teams with short weeks after this. The Colts’ surprising season actually means that if the league wanted to flex out of Vikings-Cowboys they actually could; too bad that, even based on record alone, that’s not the game they’d want to flex out of.

2025 Week 16 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	4-2	4-2
	4-1	4-2	DET: Xmas
	2-4	1-5	6-day flex
	4-2	5-1
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (12/21)
	4-2	4-2	DEN: W17 TNF
	5-1	3-3	@TB: W18
	4-2	2-3-1	DAL: 6 PT DAL: Xmas
	3-2	2-4	MIN: Xmas
	3-2	2-4	TNF-safe* (ATL: W15 TNF)
	2-4	2-3	LV: road TNF

Week 16: But don’t worry: the league will get its chance to flex out of a Dolphins game, and out of a Sunday night game, the following week! In theory, anyway; even with a number of teams surprising the mediocrity of the non-Saturday slate I noted in May still holds. The deciding factor would be whether Fox decides to protect Jaguars-Broncos or Chargers-Cowboys, and if the latter, whether NBC would be willing to take, or the league willing to flex in, the former. There could also be a bit of an X-factor if this ends up being the game where Joe Burrow returns; would NBC want to hold on to the game, even if the Dolphins are out of the playoffs, if the Bengals still have a shot to make the playoffs and this game marks Burrow’s return?

2025 Week 17 Flex Schedule Watch Through Week 6 | morganwick.com
	4-2	4-2
	3-2	4-2	6-day flex
	4-2	3-2
2 of These Games to Saturday 12/27
	4-2	3-3
	2-3	4-2
	2-4	2-4
	2-4	2-4
	1-5	3-1-1
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (12/28)
	4-2	5-1

Week 17: On the league’s Flexible Scheduling Procedures page, Thursday night flexing is only mentioned to be applying to Weeks 14-16, implying that this year’s Christmas night game is not subject to flex scheduling. That should probably have been expected; Thursday night flexing is bad enough without also potentially ruining two teams’ Christmases on short notice.

In May I noted that the league seemed to be swinging for the fences when it came to the Saturday slate, just in time for Peacock to take over one of the Saturday flex windows that have heretofore been NFL Network’s turf, with no fewer than three potentially marquee (or at least, potential lead singleheader or early doubleheader) games slated for potential Saturday moves when there are only two Saturday windows. That has not worked out as hoped, no thanks largely to the Ravens’ slow start through a combination of a tough early slate and Lamar Jackson’s injury, further exacerbated by the Texans’ slow start and Bengals’ injury woes. A number of teams in the Saturday games have hope that they can improve on their current mediocre records and make the Saturday slate appealing, but right now the best game on the entire week’s slate is Jaguars-Colts, a game not slated for a featured window but not slated for a move to Saturday either. At one point I wondered if it might get flexed into one of the primetime windows if the Bears or Falcons continued to struggle, but both of those teams have enough hope of improving their standing, or at least staying above .500, as to potentially ward off a flex.

Playoff picture charts and Week 18 coverage begin Week 9.