NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.
The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.
Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):
- Begins Sunday of Week 11
- In effect during Weeks 11-17
- Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
- The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
- The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
- No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
- The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
- Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
- The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
- Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
- NFL schedules all games.
- Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
- Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
- In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.
Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:
Week 11 (November 18):
- Selected game: Baltimore @ Pittsburgh.
Week 12 (November 25):
- Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
- Prospects: 6-3 v. 6-3; the Packers may have started out mediocre, but now this game might have the best chance to keep its spot.
- Likely protections: Vikings-Bears or Rams-Cardinals if anything (FOX) and probably nothing (CBS) as Ravens-Chargers was their only real protection-worthy game and both teams have listed two protected games each, neither of which was this one.
- Other possible games: Normally Thanksgiving Weekend means a paucity of good games, but here we have Vikings-Bears, Ravens-Chargers, Seahawks-Dolphins, and Falcons-Bucs.
- Analysis: Vikings-Bears would be a very strong choice if it’s unprotected (a big if), but it’s become pretty lopsided at this point; the best it could do would probably be 6-4 v. 7-2, which might get flexed in against a weaker tentative, but as is wouldn’t be enough to overcome the tentative game bias against Packers-Giants at 6-3 v. 6-4. I’d still expect it to get the late afternoon feature spot. The other games all involve 4-4 teams, which isn’t remotely good enough against this competition.
- Final prediction: Green Bay Packers @ New York Giants (no change).
Week 13 (December 2):
- Tentative game: Philadelphia @ Dallas
- Prospects: Very iffy at 3-5 v. 3-5 (and the Giants starting to pull away with the division); would even the NFC East factor overcome such mediocre teams?
- Likely protections: 49ers-Rams or Vikings-Packers (FOX) and Steelers-Ravens (CBS).
- Other possible games: Vikings-Packers would be the strongest alternative if it’s unprotected (another big if), as Seahawks-Bears might be a little too lopsided. Pats-Dolphins, Colts-Lions, and Bucs-Broncos are dark horses.
Week 14 (December 9):
- Tentative game: Detroit @ Green Bay
- Prospects: 4-4 v. 6-3. The Lions have largely escaped their mediocre start, though if it weren’t for the Packers’ own mediocre start this would probably look lopsided anyway.
- Likely protections: Bears-Vikings or Cardinals-Seahawks if anything (FOX) and Chargers-Steelers (CBS).
- Other possible games: With the Cardinals following their 4-0 start with a 5-game losing streak, Bears-Vikings and Dolphins-49ers are the only two options, and the former is dependent on being unprotected. At this point Bears-Vikings is probably too lopsided to overcome the tentative game bias anyway, and Dolphins-49ers is about the same as the tentative, which won’t overcome the tentative game bias either.
Week 15 (December 16):
- Tentative game: San Francisco @ New England
- Prospects: 6-2 v. 5-3, pretty much in the same shape as Packers-Giants, replacing the Packers with the Patriots and noting that the Niners aren’t quite all the way back to being that much of a name team.
- Likely protections: Broncos-Ravens (probably not), Colts-Texans, Steelers-Cowboys, or nothing (CBS) and Giants-Falcons (FOX).
- Other possible games: Packers-Bears (or if it’s protected, Giants-Falcons) is in the best shape, though Broncos-Ravens and Colts-Texans are also competitive. I doubt any of them can beat this tentative, though.
Week 16 (December 23):
- Tentative game: San Diego @ NY Jets
- Prospects: 4-4 v. 3-5; no longer the worst of the tentative games, but maybe the most vulnerable. This game’s best chance to keep its spot may rest with the Jets getting on the Tebow bandwagon.
- Likely protections: Giants-Ravens (FOX) and Bengals-Steelers if anything (CBS).
- Other possible games: If Vikings-Packers is protected Week 13, this is probably the likeliest flex with Vikings-Texans giving NBC a shot to show the Vikings anyway, assuming it doesn’t become too lopsided, and 49ers-Seahawks a potential option if it does.
Week 17 (December 30):
- Playoff positioning watch begins next week because I’m not setting up that on top of everything else in my life.