Since it started in its current format as the NFL’s main primetime package in 2006, the defining feature of NBC’s Sunday Night Football has been the use of flexible scheduling to ensure the best matchups and showcase the best teams as the season goes along. Well, that’s the theory, anyway; the reality has not always lived up to the initial hype and has at times seemed downright mystifying. Regardless, I’m here to help you figure out what you can and can’t expect to see on Sunday nights on NBC.
A full explanation of all the factors that go into flexible scheduling decisions can be found on my NFL Flexible Scheduling Primer, but here’s the Cliffs Notes version with all the important points you need to know:
- The season can be broken down into three different periods (four if you count the first four weeks where flexible scheduling does not apply at all) for flexible scheduling purposes, each with similar yet different rules governing them: the early flex period, from weeks 5 to 10; the main flex period, from weeks 11 to 17; and week 18. In years where Christmas forces either the Sunday afternoon slate or the Sunday night game to Saturday in Week 16, flex scheduling does not apply that week, and the main flex period begins week 10. Note: This year NBC’s press release indicated that the main flex period begins in Week 11 even though Christmas falls on Sunday. I’m assuming this is correct and the result of NBC still being able to have six weeks in the main flex period despite this because of the expansion of the season.
- In all cases, only games scheduled for Sunday may be moved to Sunday night. Thursday and Monday night games are not affected by Sunday night flexible scheduling (discounting the “flexible scheduling” applied to Saturdays in December in recent years – see below).
- During the early and main flex periods, one game is “tentatively” scheduled for Sunday night and listed with the Sunday night start time of 8:20 PM ET. This game will usually remain at that start time and air on NBC, but may be flexed out for another game and moved to 1, 4:05, or 4:25 PM ET on Fox or CBS, no less than 12 days in advance of the game.
- No more than two games can be flexed to Sunday night over the course of the early flex period. If the NFL wishes to flex out a game in the early flex period twelve days in advance, CBS and Fox may elect to protect one game each from being moved to Sunday night. This is generally an emergency valve in situations where the value of the tentative game has plummeted since the schedule was announced, namely in cases of injury to a key star player.
- CBS and Fox may also each protect games, historically in five out of six weeks of the main flex period, but all of those protections must be submitted after week 5, week 4 in years where the main flex period begins week 10 (so it is always six weeks before the start of the main flex period).
- No team may appear more than six times across the league’s three primetime packages on NBC, ESPN, and Fox/NFL Network, and only three teams are allowed to appear that often, with everyone else getting five. In addition, no team may appear more than four times on NBC. All teams’ number of appearances heading into this season may be seen here.
- According to the league’s official page, teams are notified when “they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.” However, they rarely make this known to the fans, and the list of each network’s protections has never officially been made public. It used to leak fairly regularly, but has not leaked since 2014.
- In all cases, the NFL is the ultimate arbiter of the schedule and consults with CBS, Fox, and NBC before moving any games to prime time. If the NFL does elect to flex out the Sunday night game, the network whose game is flexed in may receive the former tentative game, regardless of which network would “normally” air it under the “CBS=AFC, Fox=NFC” rules, keeping each network’s total number of games constant. At the same time, the NFL may also move games between 1 PM ET and 4:05/4:25 PM ET. However, this feature focuses primarily if not entirely on Sunday night flexible scheduling.
- In Week 18, the entire schedule is set on only six days notice, ensuring that NBC gets a game with playoff implications, generally a game where the winner is the division champion. More rarely, NBC may also show an intra-division game for a wild card spot, or a game where only one team wins the division with a win but doesn’t win the division with a loss, but such situations are rare and 2018 and 2020, respectively, were the first times it showed such games. If no game is guaranteed to have maximum playoff implications before Sunday night in this fashion, the league has been known not to schedule a Sunday night game at all. To ensure maximum flexibility, no protections or appearance limits apply to Week 17. The NFL also arranges the rest of the schedule such that no team playing at 4:25 PM ET (there are no 4:05 games Week 17) could have their playoff fate decided by the outcome of the 1 PM ET games, which usually means most if not all of the games with playoff implications outside Sunday night are played at 4:25 PM ET, except for two games moved to Saturday to be simulcast on ESPN and ABC.
Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:
Week 11 (November 20):
- Tentative game: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
- Prospects: 2-3 v. 1-4. I saw some speculation in the comments of the appearance count post and on the 506sports Discord over whether Steelers-Dolphins would be flexed out Week 7, with the conclusion that it would keep its spot because of how dire the rest of the slate was once CBS and Fox got their protections in and the unique reasons for scheduling that game (it’s the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Dolphins’ unbeaten season, with the Steelers being the team they beat in the AFC Championship Game that year, plus Steelers assistant Brian Flores returns to the team he sued for firing him). This game doesn’t have that going for it, nor do the Steelers’ opponents have the saving grace of at least being above .500.
- Likely protections: Chiefs-Chargers or Cowboys-Vikings (CBS) and Bears-Falcons, Rams-Saints, or nothing (FOX).
- Other possible games: Either of CBS’ potentially protected games would be very strong; Chiefs-Chargers pits the top two teams in the AFC West after the barnburner they put on to start Amazon’s TNF slate, while Cowboys-Vikings is a battle of 4-1 teams (and probably more likely to be protected, because Cowboys). As such, this might be the likeliest flex candidate of the year. Eagles-Colts is the next-best game on the slate with Browns-Bills and Jets-Patriots joining Fox’s potentially protected games as dark horses.
Week 12 (November 27):
- Tentative game: Green Bay @ Philadelphia
- Prospects: 3-2 v. 5-0; arguably an even better game than NBC thought they were getting, pitting Aaron Rodgers against the league’s last unbeaten team.
- Likely protections: Ravens-Jaguars, Bengals-Titans, Chargers-Cardinals, or nothing (CBS) and Rams-Chiefs, Saints-49ers, or nothing (FOX).
- Other possible games: Thanksgiving weekend, paucity of good games; Giants-Cowboys on Thanksgiving is the only other game all week pitting two teams above .500. Bucs-Browns, Bears-Jets, and the potentially protected games all have 2-3 teams facing teams above .500, making them the closest thing to something that can unseat Packers-Eagles.
Week 13 (December 4):
- Tentative game: Indianapolis @ Dallas
- Prospects: 2-2-1 v. 4-1. Has the potential to get lopsided, but never bet on a Cowboys game being flexed out for any reason.
- Likely protections: Jets-Vikings, Chiefs-Bengals, or nothing (CBS) and Titans-Eagles or Dolphins-49ers (FOX).
- Other possible games: Jets-Vikings and Fox’s potentially protected games are the only games pitting two teams above .500. Broncos-Ravens, Packers-Bears, and Chiefs-Bengals are dark horses.
Week 14 (December 11):
- Tentative game: Kansas City @ Denver
- Prospects: 4-1 v. 2-3. Could be concerningly lopsided, but if the Broncos offense can get in sync with Russell Wilson this could still be a worthy Sunday night game.
- Likely protections: Jets-Bills or Dolphins-Chargers (CBS) and Bucs-49ers (FOX).
- Other possible games: Eagles-Giants joins CBS’ potentially protected games as contenders. Browns-Bengals and Jaguars-Titans are dark horses.
Week 15 (December 18):
- Tentative game: New England @ Las Vegas
- Prospects: 2-3 v. 1-4 and the two worst teams in their respective divisions.
- Likely protections: Probably Titans-Chargers (CBS) and Cowboys-Jaguars, Eagles-Bears, or nothing (FOX).
- Other possible games: As usual, assuming the games set aside for a potential move to Saturday can’t be protected; Dolphins-Bills is the clear favorite on the slate right now, followed by Colts-Vikings, with Ravens-Browns and Falcons-Saints looking to jump in if any of those teams improve. Unfortunately Titans-Chargers is the only other game on the Sunday slate pitting two teams above .500, leaving Bengals-Bucs and Fox’s potentially protected games as dark horses. NBC may be stuck with this one.
Week 17 (January 1):
- Tentative game: LA Rams @ LA Chargers
- Prospects: 2-3 v. 3-2. Seems decidedly mediocre, but there’s a lot of room for the game to break in any direction this early in the season.
- Likely protections: Vikings-Packers (CBS) and Saints-Eagles, Jets-Seahawks, or nothing (FOX).
- Other possible games: After Vikings-Packers, Colts-Giants is the next best game on the Sunday slate. Broncos-Chiefs and Dolphins-Patriots join Fox’s potentially protected games as dark horses.
Week 18 (January 8):
- Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9.