Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 15

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 17 (January 3):

AFC Playoff Picture

DIVISION LEADERS	WILD CARD	WAITING IN THE WINGS
SOUTH 47-7	59-5	ALL OTHER TEAMS ELIMINATED
6-8
WEST 310-4	69-5
9-5
NORTH 211-3	9-5
9-5
EAST 112-2
CLINCHED

NFC Playoff Picture

DIVISION LEADERS	WILD CARD	WAITING IN THE WINGS (7-7)
EAST 47-7	59-5
2 tied at 6-8
NORTH 310-4	69-5
9-5
WEST 212-2
CLINCHED
SOUTH 114-0
CLINCHED

• Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
• Possible games: Vikings-Packers, Bucs-Panthers. The situation is actually quite simple, but this may be the biggest looming headache of the all-division-games era, certainly if the Panthers, Vikings, and Cardinals all lose and leave the NFL with no good options.
• Vikings-Packers will be picked if: The Packers lose OR (the Vikings win AND the Panthers lose). In all likelihood, the NFL is going to have to settle for a division title game between two playoff-bound teams that may well determine home field for a rematch the following week. What makes this even more of a headache is that the Vikings play on Sunday night, so if the Packers win this game’s chances will be dependent on the Sunday night result… then again, if you believe one of my commenters a Packers win could force this game to be rescheduled to Saturday anyway, since that would keep open the possibility the Cardinals would have to host the Vikings the weekend of the college football national championship in their home stadium, and in any case that possibility would make the NFL somewhat reluctant to flex Vikings-Packers to primetime even without the CFP factor.
• Bucs-Panthers will be picked if: The Panthers win AND the Packers win. This is a last resort play if Vikings-Packers weren’t an option, but honestly if Vikings-Packers weren’t such a ratings magnet I could see the NFL going with the game that’s meaningless for playoff purposes but totally meaningful for history in the absence of a true winner-in, loser-out game, and they may do so anyway if they’d prefer to schedule Vikings-Packers simultaneously with Cardinals-Seahawks (i.e., if the Packers have a shot to steal the first-round bye, although if it’s still a division title game it’s much better to have it go on later than the reverse).