NFL Flexible Scheduling Watch: Week 7

What does flexible scheduling mean for Monday and Thursday Night Football, particularly when it comes to how the league sees them?

Historically, ESPN’s package was considered the secondary primetime package getting games of somewhat questionable quality, while Thursday nights were a tertiary package hobbled by the need to show every team exactly once to balance out everyone’s short weeks. The NFL has attempted to improve the quality of the games both packages have gotten over the last decade; during the “broadcast-network-and-NFLN-simulcast” era for TNF (during a time when the league’s relationship with ESPN was… not great) it regularly rated ahead of MNF in simulcast weeks and the league treated it accordingly, giving it games as good as the restrictions on the package allowed for, and since Jimmy Pitaro has taken the helm at ESPN and started simulcasting MNF games on ABC, and especially since the new TV deal that gives ABC and ESPN Super Bowls, the league has started giving them better games as well, including last year’s Super Bowl rematch between the Niners and Chiefs. This year ESPN got two Tier 1 games, Lions-Ravens and Washington-Chiefs, the latter of which was also identified as one of the most coveted games for TV partners by the posters on the 506sports Discord. But NBC, CBS, and Fox each got at least three Tier 1 games and at least three coveted games, and Amazon didn’t get any game in either category.

Part of what holds Monday and Thursday nights back is how many games of each team they’re able to air. Since the start of the new TV deals, no team has been scheduled for more than two games on either package at the start of the year, and we know no team can play more than two in the case of Thursday nights. NBC, by contrast, regularly has teams scheduled for as many as three games at the start of the year, and even before the expansion of the season could have teams flexed in for a fourth. ESPN is further constricted by their “doubleheaders” giving them more games than the other primetime package and requiring them to show games involving more teams, making them the package of last resort for teams with only one primetime appearance, not TNF like it used to be. This all has the effect of limiting how many good games each package can air and increasing the chance that each package will show games involving teams of questionable quality, even if the days of the Jags and Titans squaring off in the Tank Bowl on TNF are in the past. And while both packages are getting better games, and more good games, than they used to, they’re still mixed in with a number of games that wouldn’t be caught dead on SNF or as the lead late doubleheader game.

So what are the league’s expectations for those packages in light of the expansion of flex scheduling to them? Flexible scheduling brings with it the expectation that there’s a level of quality the league doesn’t want the packages to fall below, but that’s not necessarily the level that the league schedules them for. Both packages have had games scheduled for flexible windows that seemed to be of questionable quality when the schedule came out, though ESPN more so than Amazon; both last year and this year, the Monday after Thanksgiving got its week tagged as a “yellow light” week as a week where the league might pull the flex if every team involved played exactly as expected, and last year each package also contributed to identifying a “red light” week where the league would want to pull a flex but couldn’t because of the additional protections CBS and Fox got in the new TV deals. So far, no SNF game has been expected to be the worst flexible game in a week I tagged as “yellow light” or “red light”. So is the league okay with continuing to schedule questionable games for Monday and Thursday nights despite the expansion of flex scheduling to them? But what to make of those “yellow light” weeks where, based on the expectations surrounding the teams when the schedule comes out, the league would already be expected to flex out of their own game?

Worth noting that last year’s “yellow light” game ended up not being flexed out (much to my surprise), and this year’s game seems unlikely to be flexed out either. In both cases, the reason may have to do with how changing the date a game is played affects the amount of rest teams get, which may be the main factor preventing flexible scheduling from raising the level of Monday and Thursday nights too much, besides the restrictions on the number of times teams can play on each night. Teams obviously can’t play Thursday night games immediately following Monday night games (Sunday-to-Thursday jumps are bad enough), and teams playing on Monday or Thursday nights in consecutive weeks are probably something the league wants to avoid in general because of the rest mismatches they create. Even Monday night games after Thursday games might be a bridge too far for the league, exacerbating the rest mismatch that already exists the week after a Thursday game.

All of this may be coming to a head when it comes to the Miami Dolphins, starting the season 1-6 and in an absolute tailspin with people wondering why head coach Mike McDaniel hasn’t been fired yet. The Dolphins are scheduled for a Week 15 Monday night clash with Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers, in a week where I was already worried about the number of marquee games unable to be flexed due to being divisional matchups with rematches on the wrong network. But if the game were the Sunday nighter, as will be the case for the Dolphins the following week, it could be flexed out no problem, with the Colts successfully “playing their way into primetime”. On Monday night, the game not only has to deal with not shortening anyone’s rest for the following week’s Thursday game, but the two games Fox has scheduled for the following Saturday. That means ESPN’s options for replacing it are very limited, and it’s not clear that the options they do have are any better.

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
	4-3	5-2	@KC: TNF
	5-2	5-2
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (11/16)
	5-2	5-2	@SEA: TNF
	5-2	4-2
	4-3	4-3
	4-2	3-3	@CHI: MNF
	4-3	3-3
	3-4	4-2

Week 11: Under the new flex scheduling regime, Week 11 doesn’t really feel like a flex scheduling week anymore. The Sunday night game pits what might be the two best teams in the NFC in a potential playoff preview, 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 has a matchup between two mediocre teams, 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
	5-2	3-3-1	@PHI: NBC
	5-2	5-2
	4-3	5-2
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (11/23)
	4-2	4-2	CHI: Fri W13
	6-1	4-3	KC: 7 PT
	3-3	4-1-1	@MIN: W18
	5-2	3-4	CIN: TNF W13

Week 12: This week might be better, but TNF is still stuck showing a game involving the 2-4 Texans, and ESPN has to be hoping the Panthers’ relatively strong start isn’t a mirage, because with this being the week before Thanksgiving, the only games that even need to be protected from a move to Monday involve teams at 2-5 or worse, so as I predicted back in May ESPN is likely stuck with it. Meanwhile, Eagles-Cowboys isn’t the most impressive game, but “Cowboys uber alles” would still protect it and the late doubleheader window tends to favor the biggest, most marketable names over the best teams in any case.

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

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 could be a source of endless frustration for ESPN. Giving a team consecutive Monday night games by flexing in a game in the second of the two weeks is more acceptable than the reverse because it doesn’t change the rest mismatch, just the total amount of rest for both teams, but I suspect it was probably still a bridge too far for the league in Week 13 last year in the situation I mentioned above, and if the league isn’t willing to do that the only games available would involve teams with records as bad or worse than the Giants. I still think the Cardinals are better than their record – all their losses are by one score, including to the Niners, Seahawks, Colts, and Packers – but they also have a home loss to the woeful Titans and their schedule doesn’t get any easier with the Cowboys this week the only team without a winning record they play until December.

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

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 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
	3-3	5-2
	5-2	5-2	LAR: W16 TNF
	4-1-1	5-2	GB: W16 Sat
	3-3	3-3-1	6-day flex
	1-6	4-2
Sunday Afternoon Flex Candidates (12/14)
	6-1	5-2	SEA: W16 TNF
	4-2	5-2	@BUF: SNF
	4-3	4-3	v. LAC: YT

Week 15: Back in May, I mentioned that the Sunday slate this week was so riddled with games that couldn’t be flexed that the only reason it didn’t represent a failure by the league to schedule with flex scheduling in mind was because of the principle of “Cowboys uber alles”. Thankfully for NBC, the Cowboys have been more respectable than a lot of people expected after the Micah Parsons trade, and this game is at least one that the tentative game bias would favor as well – and even if it wasn’t, the Colts’ surprising season means the league actually would have a viable alternative to flex in. On the other hand, the Dolphins becoming a tire fire has resulted in a game warranting a flex that would be even more difficult to replace.

I was worried about CBS having a number of marquee divisional matchups they wouldn’t need to protect, but for the reasons mentioned in the opening section, when it comes to Monday night CBS doesn’t even need to protect their hottest non-divisional matchups. All told, here is the complete list of all games that can move to this Monday night: Jets-Jaguars, Cardinals-Texans, Titans-Niners, Panthers-Saints. Only one of those four games doesn’t involve a team with the same or worse record as the Dolphins. That sums up why ESPN might be stuck airing a 1-6 team in the middle of a tailspin in what’s supposed to be a flexible window.

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

Week 16: The Dolphins’ Sunday night clash with the Bengals is more vulnerable, but even with a number of teams surprising the mediocrity of the non-Saturday slate I noted in May still holds. The league should still have a strong alternative available in Jaguars-Broncos, assuming Fox protects Chargers-Cowboys; the Jaguars’ typically weak name value might be counteracted by the presence of Travis Hunter and the general prospect of both teams making the playoffs. A potential X-factor could also be whether this ends up being the game where Joe Burrow returns and whether NBC wants to keep the game for that reason, though that seems unlikely to me. All told, this looks like the most likely flex of the season.

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

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, and if the Panthers stay above .500 their game against the Seahawks would at least be worth showcasing, but right now Jaguars-Colts is arguably a better option than any of the potential Saturday games.

Playoff picture charts and Week 18 coverage begin Week 9.