Week 12 (November 24):
- Tentative game: Seattle @ Philadelphia
- Prospects: 7-2 v. 5-4. Not as lopsided as it could have been, and the Eagles are right in the thick of contention in the NFC East.
- Likely protections: Jaguars-Titans if anything (CBS) and Cowboys-Patriots (FOX).
- Other possible games mentioned on last week’s Watch and their records: Packers (8-2)-49ers (8-0), Saints (7-2)-Panthers (5-4)
- Impact of Monday Night Football: Were the Seahawks to win, not only would Packers-Niners lose its major storyline of the Niners being unbeaten, the Seahawks would only be a half-game back of the division and would tentatively hold a tiebreaker over the Niners, though Seahawks-Eagles would become a skosh more lopsided. On the other hand, a Niners victory might well put the division out of reach for all practical purposes with the Seahawks needing to make up three losses and the tiebreaker.
- Analysis: We have a Sunday night tentative with potential wild-card and division implications for both teams and a late-afternoon feature game pitting two big names on top of their divisions, yet we also have Packers-Niners, pitting one of the league’s biggest names against the last undefeated team with each team two games better than the tentative, pinned to the late afternoon slot and seemingly doomed to limited distribution. Ideally, the league would flex in Packers-Niners, crossflex either Seahawks-Eagles or Saints-Panthers to CBS, and have each game anchor either the early-doubleheader or singleheader window, but who knows if the league would be willing to do anything that sensible, especially since the Seahawks probably wouldn’t be happy about a game formerly scheduled for primetime now being scheduled for the morning in their home time zone.
Seahawks-Eagles isn’t so bad it would normally warrant being flexed out, but the league has flexed out perfectly fine tentatives in the past to increase the distribution of games that would otherwise be relegated to limited distribution, to the point of twice allowing the former tentative to anchor the late spot of the doubleheader, not to mention the infamous “protection override” of 2013. However, the record of the league doing so with underdistributed late-doubleheader games, as opposed to 4:05 singleheader games, is limited, and the league has twice in the past twelve months failed to boost the distribution of Rams divisional games that instead languished at 4:05, though for understandable reasons (I predicted no flex both times). A flex would represent the Packers’ sixth primetime appearance but none of their remaining games before Week 17 seem terribly likely to be flexed in. Last week I suggested that Packers-Niners could be flexed in regardless of the result of the Monday night game if the Packers won, because a Seahawks win would just make Seahawks-Eagles more lopsided while Packers-Niners would only be a half-game apart, and that’s what happened. I’m predicting the league will pull the flex here, but I would be far from surprised if Seahawks-Eagles kept its spot (and the fact nothing has been announced as I post this might not be a good sign for a flex unless there are some intense negotiations going on).
- Final prediction: Green Bay Packers @ San Francisco 49ers.