Week 14 (December 11):
- Tentative game: Kansas City @ Denver
- Prospects: 9-2 v. 3-8. The Broncos are not living up to the hype of Russell Wilson’s arrival, and this game is probably too lopsided to keep around.
- Likely protections: Jets-Bills or Dolphins-Chargers (CBS) and Bucs-49ers or Eagles-Giants (FOX).
- Other possible games mentioned on last week’s Watch and their records: Eagles (10-1)-Giants (7-4), Jets (7-4)-Bills (8-3), Dolphins (8-3)-Chargers (6-5), Bucs (5-6)-Niners (7-4).
- Impact of Monday Night Football: None.
- Analysis: Everything depends on what the protections are. Eagles-Giants actually has a decent chance to be unprotected, as while Bucs-Niners was a battle of 3-2 teams at the time Brady’s star power and the relative expectations surrounding the teams involved might still have favored it. With the Bucs losing to the lowly Browns, though, I don’t expect them to be flexed in. Jets-Bills is the next-best game on the slate but is probably protected, which brings us to Dolphins-Chargers, which as the late singleheader is the type of game the league tends to go to bat for to flex in (especially with the tentative being a West Coast game that can be plugged in to the slot), and with Rams-Chargers increasingly likely to be flexed out Week 17 the Chargers becoming maxed out on appearance limits after being flexed in earlier in the year shouldn’t be an issue. (Though the possibility of Titans-Chargers being flexed in next week could be a bigger issue, though I doubt it; more on that in the next full Flex Schedule Watch.) I didn’t think it was so compelling as to be absolutely necessary to be flexed in, but with the Chargers beating the Cardinals it’s actually only a game worse in the worse team’s record than Jets-Bills, and while the teams don’t have as much name value the quarterback matchup of Tua v. Herbert might be more compelling. I don’t know if it’s bumping out Eagles-Giants, which might be too good to be consigned to the early doubleheader but can’t displace the West Coast-based Bucs-Niners as Fox’s featured game (the Eagles would be maxed out on primetime appearances but their games the next two flexible weeks aren’t factors to be flexed in). If it’s protected Dolphins-Chargers should easily be the pick, but if it isn’t I could see it going either way. Does the name value, big markets, and better records of a pair of NFC East teams trump its lopsidedness (and general sense of the Giants wilting against good teams) and Dolphins-Chargers being in a worse time slot? I think Eagles-Giants comes out on top in that comparison, but I’m not confident about it. (Frankly, I’m not even sure Eagles-Giants’ name value trumps lopsidedness if the comparison is with Jets-Bills; if the latter game gets picked I’d be more surprised it was left unprotected than that it was picked.)
- Final prediction: New York Jets @ Buffalo Bills (if Dolphins-Chargers and Eagles-Giants are both protected); Miami Dolphins @ Los Angeles Chargers (if it’s not protected but Eagles-Giants is); Philadelphia Eagles @ New York Giants (if unprotected).