Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 9

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 originally written with the 2007 season in mind and has been only iteratively and incompletely edited since then, hence why at one point 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 4:25 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; I’m assuming protections were due in Week 4 again this year, and the above notwithstanding, Week 10 is part of the main flex period this year, as it was in 2006 and 2011. 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.
• 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, although starting this year Week 17 is exempt from team appearance limits. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; nine teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Texans don’t have games in the main flex period, though they don’t have any early-flex games left either. 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 10 (November 13):

• Selected game: Seattle @ New England.

Week 11 (November 20):

• Selected game: Green Bay @ Washington (presumably).

Week 12 (November 27):

• Tentative game: New England @ NY Jets
• Prospects: 7-1 v. 3-6. Very lopsided, but could be hard pressed to lose its spot under the circumstances.
• Likely protections: Chiefs-Broncos (CBS) and Cardinals-Falcons, Rams-Saints, Seahawks-Bucs, or nothing (FOX).
• Other possible games: Thanksgiving Weekend, paucity of good games, and this year seems to have gotten unusually lucky in terms of good teams on Thanksgiving and Monday night (across those four games only the Colts are below .500). With Chiefs-Broncos likely protected, no games involve only teams at or above .500, with Cardinals-Falcons and Bengals-Ravens the most viable alternatives, followed by Seahawks-Bucs and Rams-Saints. Panthers-Raiders is probably too lopsided to be relevant.
• Analysis: The Bengals play on Monday night, so that may be hard to assess, but things could get interesting if the Cardinals win to get to 4-4-1, the Falcons lose to get to 6-4, Patriots-Jets gets even more lopsided, and Cardinals-Falcons wasn’t protected. I’ve heard it suggested that NBC doesn’t want its plans for travel from the Thanksgiving night site to the following Sunday night site to be changed on less than two weeks’ notice, but with their half of the TNF package they’d have to do that pretty much every week of the main flex period anyway, and I would imagine the league might be desperate to do anything to stem off the constant “collapsing ratings” headlines. Neither Cardinals-Falcons nor Bengals-Ravens have any stars on the level of Tom Brady, nor do they bring the same caliber of market, but there is some evidence that people are turning away from lousy primetime games as much as anything else, and the league might be reticent to put a game that looks like such a mismatch and whose main promise might be a repeat of the Butt Fumble on its main primetime package if it has viable alternatives. Of course, as Seahawks-Cardinals proved, even evenly-matched but mediocre teams can have a lousy game, and no matter what odds are Patriots-Jets keeps its spot, but I would consider a flex to be a very real possibility here if any of the below-.500 teams win.

Week 13 (December 4):

• Tentative game: Carolina @ Seattle
• Prospects: 3-5 v. 5-2-1. Still not in great shape, but not as lopsided as it used to be and the Panthers aren’t looking as terrible as they used to be.
• Likely protections: Texans-Packers (CBS) and Rams-Patriots, Giants-Steelers, or Eagles-Bengals (FOX).
• Other possible games: Chiefs-Falcons is definitely the strongest option, assuming I’m not wrong about CBS’ protection. Lions-Saints, Eagles-Bengals, Dolphins-Ravens, Giants-Steelers, Racial Slurs-Cardinals, and Bills-Raiders are dark horses.

Week 14 (December 11):

• Tentative game: Dallas @ NY Giants
• Prospects: 7-1 v. 5-3, and the top two teams in the division, would be tough for any game to overcome the tentative game bias against, but when it’s an intra-NFC East matchup involving the Cowboys, nothing else has a chance.
• Likely protections: Steelers-Bills if anything (CBS) and Seahawks-Packers (FOX).
• Other possible games: Native Americans-Eagles was good enough I considered listing them as an option for the protection, and if I’m right about the protections it’s the only game involving nothing but teams at or above .500. Steelers-Bills, Broncos-Titans, Texans-Colts, and Cardinals-Dolphins are all dark horses.

Week 15 (December 18):

• Tentative game: Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati
• Prospects: 4-4 v. 3-4-1. Not great, and without the sort of brand value that would insulate it from a flex, but not terrible, and potentially for the AFC North lead.
• Likely protections: Patriots-Broncos (CBS) and Eagles-Ravens (FOX).
• Other possible games: The good news for this game is that Lions-Giants is the only game involving only teams above .500, and it’s not really that much better. Titans-Chiefs, Saints-Cardinals, Colts-Vikings, and Raiders-Chargers are all dark horses.

Week 17 (January 3):

AFC Playoff Picture

DIVISION LEADERS	WILD CARD	WAITING IN THE WINGS
NORTH 44-4	56-2	4-4
4-4		4-4
SOUTH 34-4	66-3	4-5
2 teams at 4-5		4-5
WEST 27-2		4-5
6-2		4-5
EAST 17-1
4-4

NFC Playoff Picture

DIVISION LEADERS	WILD CARD	WAITING IN THE WINGS
NORTH 45-3	55-3	3-4-1
5-4		3-5
SOUTH 36-3	64-3-1	3-5
4-4		3-5
WEST 25-2-1	5-4
3-4-1	4-4
EAST 17-1	4-4
5-3	4-4

• Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
• Possible games: Saints-Falcons, Giants-Politicians, Texans-Titans, Packers-Lions, Cardinals-Rams, Raiders-Broncos, Seahawks-49ers.