Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 14

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 even with the bit about the early flexes, 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 5
• In effect during Weeks 5-17
• Up to 2 games may be flexed into Sunday Night between Weeks 5-10
• 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 starting Week 11, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 in 2006 and 2011, 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. As I understand it, during the Week 5-10 period the NFL and NBC declare their intention to flex out a game two weeks in advance, at which point CBS and Fox pick one game each to protect.
• 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; nine teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Giants, Cowboys, Packers, and Eagles don’t have games in the main flex period, and of those only the Giants don’t have games in the early flex period. 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 16 (December 27):

• Selected game: NY Giants @ Minnesota.

Week 17 (January 3):

AFC Playoff Picture

DIVISION LEADERS	WILD CARD	WAITING IN THE WINGS (6-7)
SOUTH 46-7	58-5
6-7
WEST 310-3	68-5
8-5		5-8
NORTH 210-3	8-5
8-5
EAST 111-2
8-5

NFC Playoff Picture

DIVISION LEADERS	WILD CARD	WAITING IN THE WINGS (6-7)
EAST 46-7	58-5
2 tied at 6-7
NORTH 39-4	68-5
8-5
WEST 211-2
8-5
SOUTH 113-0
CLINCHED

• Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
• Possible games: Jets-Bills, Raiders-Chiefs, Indians-Cowboys, Vikings-Packers, Colts-Titans, Texans-Jaguars, Seahawks-Cardinals. Unfortunately, no division has more than one realistic wild card contender, and the divisions with the most straightforward straight-up division title games, the NFC North and West, have also all but locked up the two wild card spots between them.
• Chances of Vikings-Packers: 25 percent. The good news is that this game should be a division title game regardless of the order in which the teams would be in so long as they’re within a game of each other; the Packers have a game in hand while the Vikings should take the division tiebreaker with a win. The bad news is it would take a nearly complete collapse for the loser of this game not to be in line for a wild card spot, and outright impossible for the loser to be guaranteed to be out. It may actually be better if the winner of this game is in line for a first-round bye, even though that could cause a logistical nightmare for the NFL (see the Seahawks-Cardinals section below for what’s facing the NFL if the Cardinals have to host a wild-card game). If this game could just determine home-field for a rematch the following week, or if the loser gets to play the sucky NFC East winner while the winner has to deal with an actually good team, the NFL might actually prefer Bucs-Panthers if the Panthers are still unbeaten. Still, the likelihood of this game being a division title game leads me to peg its chances so high; if the Panthers lose one of their next two this becomes the last-resort option.
• Chances of Bucs-Panthers: 20 percent. This is basically a last-resort option for the undefeated factor the NFL would only choose if there’s no other attractive options; if the Panthers are still undefeated they’d have nothing else to play for, and there’s an off chance the NFL would prefer this game was simultaneous with other games involving NFC Wild Card contenders. So it says a lot I have the chances for this game being so high; all the other games below are counting on fairly specific circumstances.
• Chances of Indians-Cowboys: 15 percent. Turns out the Giants might be more relevant to the Week 17 selection than I thought when I made my Last-Minute Remarks. As explained here, this game could be a contender for SNF even if the Cowboys are completely irrelevant; if Washington loses next week while the Eagles win, then the Eagles lose the following week while the Giants split their next two games, the result would be a three-way tie with Washington having swept the Eagles and holding the division tie-breaker over the Giants with a win over the Cowboys. Alternately, the Cowboys have a game in hand over the Indians and are the only team in the division with three division wins; if they win their next two and the only other NFC East win is the one that’s necessary for the Eagles to lose Week 16, the result would be a three-way tie a game back of the Indians with the Cowboys set to win any three-way tiebreakers over the Indians and the Eagles-Giants winner. Both of these scenarios would be dependent on the Giants-Vikings result, but we have just seen the NFL is willing to condition a flex on the Monday Night Football result, so they might be willing to condition a flex on the SNF result as well.
• Chances of Jets-Bills: 10 percent. If the Bills win their next two and the Steelers lose their next two, the Jets would actually only need to split for this game to be an option, since the Bills have a game in hand.
• Chances of Seahawks-Cardinals: 8 percent. Would need the Cardinals to lose their next two and the Seahawks to win their next two, and might need the Packers to lose this week as well so the Cardinals aren’t at risk for hosting a Wild Card game the same weekend as the college football National Championship in their stadium. Even then the Cardinals have already clinched a playoff spot and the Seahawks would have as well, so this is another last-resort pick.
• Chances of Raiders-Chiefs: 7 percent. If the Chiefs lose their next two and the Raiders win their next two, and either the Jets or Steelers also lose their next two, both these teams would be in pretty good tiebreaker shape… to the point that if both the Jets and Steelers lose their next two, there’s a disturbingly good chance the loser of this game still makes the playoffs.
• Chances of Texans-Jaguars: 7 percent. The Jaguars have opened up the possibility of the AFC South bailing out the NFL here. If the Colts lose their next two, the Jaguars win their next two, and the Texans lose their other game, this becomes a division title game.
• Chances of Colts-Titans: 7 percent. Another last-resort game that could still lose to Bucs-Panthers if the Panthers are unbeaten and the Bucs aren’t still contending for the wild card, but falls under the same category as Indians-Cowboys might fall into, mentioned above. If the Jaguars win out and the Colts and Texans split, the Colts would hold the tiebreaker over the Texans-Jaguars winner.
• Chances of Eagles-Giants: 1 percent. Yes, both these teams are technically maxed out on primetime appearances. Yes, part of the reason they’re maxed out may be that this game can’t be moved to primetime no matter what, given the possibility of a blizzard and traffic nightmare. But you know what? Given the constraints and substandard options facing the NFL, if worst comes to worst and this is a division title game and the only option otherwise available I would not be surprised to see the NFL say “screw everyone” and push this game into primetime no matter what Fox and the Meadowlands think.