NFL

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 5

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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 last season in mind):

  • 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. (Note: Last year, NBC listed a tentative game for Week 17; they are not doing so this year.)
  • 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. (Note: Again, excluding Week 17.)
  • 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 could not protect any games Week 17 last year. Unless I find out otherwise, I’m assuming that’s still the case this year, especially with no tentative game listed Week 17, and that protections were scheduled after Week 4.
  • Three teams can 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. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 4 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 16):

  • Tentative game: Dallas @ Washington
  • Prospects: Both teams are 4-1 in the tough NFC East. Probably will keep its spot, especially being the NFL’s greatest rivalry, to the extent I wouldn’t be surprised if CBS and Fox didn’t bother to protect anything, especially Fox (who if they lost anything, say Bears-Packers, could take solace in getting the Cowboys and Redskins). That said, there’s a reason I still have Fox protecting a game this week. See below.
  • Likely protections: Ravens-Giants, Titans-Jaguars, or nothing (CBS) and Bears-Packers (FOX)
  • Other possible games: Chargers-Steelers is losing ground as the Chargers may be overrated (and now that I think about it, may have been protected anyway). Broncos-Falcons is the only remote possibility at the present time, but a lot can change.

Week 12 (November 23):

  • Tentative game: Indianapolis @ San Diego
  • Prospects: A 2-2 v. 2-3 matchup that pits v. #23 in NBCSports.com’s power rankings. Last week I said “If Indy keeps losing and the Chargers get on the winning track this could start looking lopsided.” I may want to put that the other way around, but it looks mediocre at the moment anyway, which is a shock.
  • Likely protections: Eagles-Ravens (Fox) and Jets-Titans (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Panthers-Falcons and Giants-Cardinals are probably the front-runners. Patriots-Dolphins may well be a dark horse, as might Jets-Titans. Too close to call right now.

Week 13 (November 30):

  • Tentative game: Chicago @ Minnesota
  • Prospects: 3-2 v. 2-3, which looks mediocre, but in NBCSports.com’s power rankings it’s a 10-16 matchup, which is decent, especially given the competition.
  • Likely protections: Giants-Redskins (Fox) and either Steelers-Patriots or Broncos-Jets (CBS).
  • Other possible games: It’s Thanksgiving Weekend, so more teams like the Cowboys and Titans aren’t available. Panthers-Packers looks like a decent enough selection. On the off chance Steelers-Patriots isn’t protected NBC would probably snap it up in a heartbeat. Falcons-Chargers might look bad soon.

Week 14 (December 7):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Seattle
  • Prospects: 3-1 v. 1-3, which looks lopsided. 9-v.-25 in NBC’s power rankings, also looking lopsided. Only chance for this to keep its spot is if NBC thinks the Pats are as much of a draw as they were last year, and without a perfect record (or Tom Brady), they are not.
  • Likely protections: Cowboys-Steelers (FOX) and if anything, Jags-Bears (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Redskins-Ravens looks worse off than before, but Eagles-Giants still looks good, which makes it the favorite for the moment.

Week 15 (December 14):

  • Tentative game: NY Giants @ Dallas
  • Prospects: This is why I had Fox protect Bears-Packers Week 11: so they could leave this week protection-free and maximize their chances of getting a marquee NFC East matchup back.
  • Likely protections: Steelers-Ravens, Broncos-Panthers, Bills-Jets, or nothing (CBS).
  • Othe possible games: Packers-Jaguars could start looking concerning, and Bucs-Falcons could be sneaking up to replace it. Broncos-Panthers probably the best-looking of the potentially protected games, with Bills-Jets right behind.

Week 16 (December 21):

  • Tentative game: San Diego @ Tampa Bay
  • Prospects: Quite possibly will lose its spot. It’s 2-3 @ 3-2.
  • Likely protections: Panthers-Giants or Eagles-Redskins (FOX) and Steelers-Titans (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Cardinals-Patriots and Falcons-Vikings have to at least be considered, but NBC will probably take whatever game Fox didn’t protect.

Week 17 (December 28):

  • Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9.

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 10/4-5

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All times PDT.

Saturday
9-12:30 PM: College Football, Iowa @ Michigan State (ESPN2). Wait, my new “mid-major lineal title” just got created, and all my thoughts were on whether Oregon State had done enough to crack positive B Points next week! (It will depend a LOT on SoS… but why do I keep reading, like from ESPN.com blogger Ted Miller, “what if the Penn State game was the fluke”? Penn State’s in my top 5! Didn’t the Beavers lose to Stanford as well? Win that game, and their B Rating is probably over 1 even without a better performance against JoePa! And that’s the only thing this entry has to do with the entire Big Ten.)

12:30-4 PM: College Football, Kentucky @ defending 2004 Auburn-Utah titleholder Alabama (CBS). Nick Saban is 1-0 this season in games against teams in my C Ratings with the Auburn-Utah title at stake.

6-9:30 PM: College Football, defending Princeton-Yale title holder Missouri @ Nebraska (ESPN). Preceded at 3 PM by Auburn-Vanderbilt, so games REALLY got crammed on ESPN today. Blame the Breeder’s Cup, but seriously, this seems like a natural opening for one more college football contract. But the SEC just re-upped and the Big 12 signed last year.
Sunday
10-1 PM: NFL Football, regional action (CBS and/or FOX). The WNBA Finals, below, cleared out space for NFL Football to not be restricted to SNF.

1:30-4 PM: WNBA Finals, Silver Stars @ Shock (ESPN2). Man, the WNBA Finals can’t even get an ABC slot on a weekend now? Blame NASCAR, running from 11-3 today with the AMP Energy 500. In other news, even women’s basketball players think the WNBA stinks. I really wish supporters of women’s equality in sports would put more chips on other sports like golf or softball. Basketball is either boring or incomprehensible no matter who plays it.

4-7:30 PM: MLB Baseball, Angels @ Red Sox (TBS) and 7-10 PM: MLB Baseball, Cubs @ Dodgers (TBS). I suspect some game time changes may occur if the Phillies-Brewers series ends early. Hey, by getting football out of the way earlier in the day we could fit baseball in here (SNF is 5:15-8:30) and have a whole day of college football! Thanks, WNBA, for bumping out the Chase for the Cup! (Baseball would have bumped out a primetime game, not an afternoon game as in past weeks.)

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 4

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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 last season in mind):

  • 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. (Note: Last year, NBC listed a tentative game for Week 17; they are not doing so this year.)
  • 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. (Note: Again, excluding Week 17.)
  • 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 could not protect any games Week 17 last year. Unless I find out otherwise, I’m assuming that’s still the case this year, especially with no tentative game listed Week 17, and that protections are being scheduled now, after Week 4.
  • Three teams can 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. At this writing, no team is completely tapped out at any measure, and even the Pats and Chargers could be flexed out of games to get some wiggle room. NBC appearances for all teams: PHI 3, CHI 2 (1 flexible), PIT 1, JAX 1, NE 3 (1 flexible), SD 3 (2 flexible), SEA 2 (1 flexible), TB 2 (1 flexible), IND 2 (1 flexible), NYG 2 (1 flexible), DAL 2 (both flexible), WAS 1 (flexible), MIN 1 (flexible). All primetime appearances for all teams: PHI 4, CHI 4 (1 flexible), PIT 4, JAX 3, NE 5 (1 flexible), SD 5 (2 flexible), SEA 2 (1 flexible), TB 3 (1 flexible), IND 4 (1 flexible), NYG 3 (1 flexible), DAL 4 (2 flexible), WAS 2 (1 flexible), MIN 3 (1 flexible), DEN 3, CLE 4, NYJ 2, CIN 1, ARI 2, OAK 2, NO 3, BAL 2, GB 3, TEN 1, SF 1, BUF 1, HOU 1, CAR 1.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:
Week 11 (November 16):

  • Tentative game: Dallas @ Washington
  • Prospects: Both teams are 3-1 in the tough NFC East. Probably will keep its spot, especially being the NFL’s greatest rivalry, to the extent I wouldn’t be surprised if CBS and Fox didn’t bother to protect anything, especially Fox (who if they lost anything, say Bears-Packers, could take solace in getting the Cowboys and Redskins). That said, there’s a reason I still have Fox protecting a game this week. See below.
  • Likely protections: Ravens-Giants, Titans-Jaguars, or nothing (CBS) and Bears-Packers (FOX)
  • Other possible games: Chargers-Steelers and Broncos-Falcons are the only games that look like they could be competitive right now, in addition to the games suggested above.

Week 12 (November 23):

  • Tentative game: Indianapolis @ San Diego
  • Prospects: Indy is struggling and the Chargers at 2-2 aren’t much better. If Indy keeps losing and the Chargers get on the winning track this could start looking lopsided.
  • Likely protections: Eagles-Ravens (Fox) and Jets-Titans (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Panthers-Falcons and Giants-Cardinals are probably the front-runners.

Week 13 (November 30):

  • Tentative game: Chicago @ Minnesota
  • Prospects: 2-2 v. 1-3, but most power rankings seem to think Chicago will get better.
  • Likely protections: Giants-Redskins (Fox) and either Steelers-Patriots or Broncos-Jets (CBS).
  • Other possible games: It’s Thanksgiving Weekend, so more teams like the Cowboys and Titans aren’t available. Panthers-Packers looks like a decent enough selection. Falcons-Chargers looks good as well.

Week 14 (December 7):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Seattle
  • Prospects: The Pats are 2-1, the Seahawks are 1-2, and it’s an 18-24 matchup in NBC’s power rankings.
  • Likely protections: Cowboys-Steelers (FOX) and if anything, Jags-Bears (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Redskins-Ravens, Eagles-Giants.

Week 15 (December 14):

  • Tentative game: NY Giants @ Dallas
  • Prospects: This is why I had Fox protect Bears-Packers Week 11: so they could leave this week protection-free and maximize their chances of getting a marquee NFC East matchup back.
  • Likely protections: Steelers-Ravens, Broncos-Panthers, Bills-Jets, or nothing (CBS).
  • Othe possible games: Packers-Jaguars.

Week 16 (December 21):

  • Tentative game: San Diego @ Tampa Bay
  • Prospects: Not entirely gone to pot. It’s 2-2 (but better than that) @ 3-1.
  • Likely protections: Panthers-Giants or Eagles-Redskins (FOX) and Steelers-Titans (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Cardinals-Patriots.

Week 17 (December 28):

  • Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9.

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 9/27-28

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All times PDT. All college football rankings reflect my C Ratings for teams in positive B Points.

Saturday
9-12 PM: College Football, Northwestern @ Iowa (ESPN Classic). Three teams in my top 25 and a team not in the top 25 but ranked ahead of either one of these two could conceivably go in this spot. But none of them are playing teams in positive B Points, and this might be a game to take that leap into the top 25, especially for Northwestern. Wait… Northwestern’s actually good?!?

12-2 PM: WNBA Basketball, Los Angeles @ San Antonio (NBA TV). Wait… a conference finals game on NBA TV? And it might be the deciding game?!?

Honorable Mention: 12:30-4 PM: MLB Baseball, regional action (FOX). All the hot playoff chase action! Too bad everything’s probably already determined.

4:45-8 PM: College Football, Alabama @ defending 2004 Auburn-Utah title holder Georgia (ESPN). Boy, how about my prediction on last week’s Watcher that Alabama would be “surprisingly strong”? Isn’t this two straight weeks CBS has screwed up the best SEC game? Not that Tennessee-Auburn is bad, per se…

Sunday
10:30-3 PM: PGA Tour Golf, THE TOUR Championship (NBC). The end of the playoff system that’s nothing like a playoff that no one cares about.

Honorable Mention: 11-3 PM: NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing, Kansas race (ABC).

5:15-8:30 PM: NFL Football, Philadelphia @ Chicago (NBC). A mediocre team and a team that was mediocre last year. But at least you got the big time markets!

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 9/20-21

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All times PDT.

Saturday
9:30-12:45 PM: College football, Alabama @ Arkansas (Raycom Sports). Look for Alabama to be surprisingly strong when the new ratings come out on Monday.

12:45-4 PM: MLB Baseball, regional action (FOX). As usual, this is the only place baseball can fit.

4-6 PM: WNBA Basketball, New York @ Connecticut (NBATV). Now the playoffs are in full swing.

6-8 PM: WNBA Basketball, Sacramento @ San Antonio (NBATV). Man, the schedule really gets cramped this week and next with all the stuff I have to squeeze in.
Sunday
9-3 PM: Ryder Cup, final round (NBC). Is it just me, or does it seem like only sports journalists and groups that cover sports (ie ESPN) care about the Ryder Cup? And gee, it seems a lot bigger now that ESPN is covering the final round…

Honorable Mention: 10-3 PM: NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing, Dover race (ABC). When I looked, both this race and the next one were identified as the “Camping World 400”, but with different “presented by” sponsors.

5-8:30 PM: NFL Football, Dallas @ Green Bay (NBC). Obligatory NFL game that has to be SNF.

Did I waste this weekend or what?

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Posting the updated lineal titles now because I can. Looks like LSU will finally be defending against a half-decent team this week in Auburn. Georgia shouldn’t slouch either because for the second straight week a title defense is on ABC’s Saturday Night Football. USC has the week off and Missouri might as well, especially since they DO have a week off NEXT week. Three of the four title-holders’ next defenses are on national television.

I haven’t done a lick of work to set up the infrastructure for the college football rankings, which need to be up… next week. Yikes. AND I need to do, you know, actual productive things. AND I’m falling behind on my other plans for Da Blog as well. God I suck.

My thoughts on the new Monday Night Football graphics package

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You can see some of ESPN’s new MNF package in action here:

And this video has a statistical graphic near the end, and a one-line statistic at about midway:

I think what may have been meant by “they’ll know it’s a better experience. But they won’t know why” was that even if people would notice the scoring bar was different, they’d only notice that most graphics were being kept out of sight if they were looking for it (perhaps because they noticed how the names of the announcers were displayed at the start of the broadcast). This would also seem to indicate an abandoning of the parallelogram in ESPN’s graphics package… were it not for the fact that some parallelograms were occasionally seen on some full-screen graphics. (Peripherally, ESPN also becomes the last NFL broadcaster to add an on-field down-and-distance indicator. ESPN also lagged in displaying the down and distance on their “dashboard”, apparently thinking the on-field graphic made it redundant, but I saw some complaints about having to wait too long to see the new down and distance.)

I would not be surprised if this never makes the leap outside Monday Night Football, at least on ESPN. ESPN seems to want to keep MNF special in some way, if the “orb” of previous years was any indication, and it would be difficult to fit college team names in there, at least if ESPN wanted to keep the team logos as well. ESPN’s wide team logos also seems best fit for the NFL; you would probably be looking at a very different look for baseball.

I can’t help but think the folks in the ESPN graphics department may be disappointed at this graphic’s revolutionary potential. Ironically, the centered score display, at least as refined by NFL Network, may be the next big evolution in score graphics, thanks to the intricities of widescreen vs. standard screen display.

A major change to the ad model

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After giving it some thought, I have made several important changes to the ad model. Two primary concerns are leading me to adopt an alternative strategy to the one I was considering. First, my sidebar is too narrow to accomodate a skyscraper ad, so the largest ad size the sidebar will accomodate is a square ad. Second, my plans for a square ad were originally to have four a page – but I’ve recently started wondering if that’s exactly the best approach for a site with basically no visitors.

Those concerns, plus the fact that my attempts to let people know they’re better off bidding on my premier ad have mostly resulted in depressing bidding on the Standard ad without increasing bidding on my Premier ad (which STILL isn’t topping the Standard ad’s rates), have led me to change my ad strategy for Da Blog as well. So on the right side, you will see space for two square ads. Those are NOT in the same ad box. One of them is an ad that also appears on the rest of the Morgan Wick sites, the other is technically the same ad box Da Blog has had since August, only it’s now a square box. If you have previously bid on the standard skyscraper box your bid is now null and void and you must bid again with a square ad. To get the best bang for your buck with your square ad, you should be bidding on the top Morgan Wick box, but if you have a lower budget and can’t afford the top box you can still reach most of the same people with the bottom Da Blog box (although the top Premier box will still be a better investment in most circumstances, and now it’s bigger!). I’ve also put advertisements for Sandsday in both of the Da Blog-specific boxes that will run if there are no bids otherwise.

If that’s a bit confusing, don’t worry. I’ve created an advertising FAQ on the Web site that aims to put the answers to any questions you may have – and links to every one of my ad boxes – in one place. That includes not only the ad that appears across the Web site, but a new ad I’ve created just for Sandsday. I’m still debating what to do with the rest of the site, including possibly committing the forbidden act of using Google Adsense.

While I’m at it, I’ve also added a new item to the Around the Horn Drinking Game, fixed some buggy links on Sandsday, and updated the NFL Lineal Title. I’m starting to think I should study Javascript more too… PHP doesn’t seem to work on Freehostia for files whose extensions aren’t .php, so I can’t use it to create a dynamic sidebar unless I rename all my files, and it seems to require the use of Javascript to obtain the user’s screen resolution, which would be nice for fixing one of Sandsday’s biggest problems, the inability to be viewed properly at 800×600 resolution.

OMG! It’s football season! Our lives have meaning!

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Who cares about those amateur college scrubs? THE league of record in America is the National Football League, and Da Blog and Morgan Wick’s football site is ready with complete team coverage there as well!

Start with the NFL Lineal Title; as I said last week, it’s analogous to the college football lineal titles, but because of the NFL’s schedule structure there’s rarely more than one at a time, and never more than two. I need to explain something that I forgot to make clear last week: Split titles in the college football lineal title arise from teams going undefeated, or winning the BCS Title Game (which is why LSU gets a new lineal title this year despite not going undefeated). Obviously, it’s exceedingly rare for an NFL team to go undefeated, so what happens instead is that split titles are created when the title holder doesn’t make the playoffs. Obviously, that’s rather rare as well, and the Patriots nabbed the lineal title on their march to an almost-perfect season, so the Giants start the season with the title this year and will defend it against Washington tonight on NBC.

Speaking of which, starting Week 3 or 4, I’ll start my weekly SNF Flex Schedule Watch, which was perhaps the prime contributor of traffic to Da Blog last year, before it was taken over by webcomics. I correctly predicted the Week 12, 14, 15, and 17 games that were moved to primetime as part of NBC’s flexible scheduling, only missing Weeks 11, 13, and 16. I had thought I did the Flex Schedule Watch on Tuesdays last year, but it was actually a Wednesday feature last year so it’s a Wednesday feature this year.

There is a third concept that I used last year: the “SuperPower Rankings”, my experiment in creating a set of “super-power rankings” from the power rankings produced by the eight leading sports sites (ESPN, CBS, Fox, NBC, SI, Yahoo, USA Today, and Sporting News – Yahoo produced two rankings). It proved to be way too much work, so I’m not doing it this year, but I leave the concept open for someone else to pick up the gauntlet.