For two decades, NBC has showcased Sunday Night Football as the highlight game of the weekend. One of the attractive features of SNF has been the flexible scheduling, allowing the league to replace less exciting games with more intriguing matchups. In fact, for the last few years, the flexibility to change games has started in Week 5 rather than waiting until later in the season.
However, the matchup between the 2-5 Philadelphia Eagles and the 1-4-1 Washington Commanders didn’t get swapped this weekend, despite the presence of more appealing games on the Week 8 schedule. Is this indicative of a bias towards the NFC East? Well, it seems to be a bit more complex, mostly due to decisions made by the NFL itself.
Satisfying FOX and CBS: Auto-protections for divisional games, expanded weekly protections
Potential replacements for SNF are mostly division rivalries:
- Cleveland Browns (5-2) at Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2)
- Minnesota Vikings (6-0) at Detroit Lions (4-2)
- Kansas City Chiefs (5-1) at Denver Broncos (5-2)
But here’s the catch: All of these games have either already occurred or are scheduled for prime-time.
The Browns faced the Steelers on Thursday Night Football in Week 4, the Chiefs dominated the Broncos on Monday Night Football in Week 1, and the Vikings are set to host the Lions on Sunday Night Football in Week 15.
The recent broadcasting rules, which started this season, have introduced notable changes that protect FOX and CBS from losing high-profile games to NBC, ESPN/ABC, and Amazon’s Prime Video. Unlike previous years, where NBC might flex a game, both FOX and CBS have the right to defend one of the two divisional games they would typically air. Hence, these three matchups can’t be leveraged for flexing to prime-time.
FOX and CBS also received expanded protections beyond just divisional matchups. They can each protect a game each week during the flex window (except for Week 18), separate from the auto-protections given for division matches.
Most likely, FOX would have opted to protect the matchup between the Vikings and Lions, while CBS probably secured the game of the Baltimore Ravens at the Buffalo Bills. If Ravens-Bills had been unprotected and still not flexed, that might be related to the Ravens having a Thursday night game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, as generally, the NFL avoids consecutive games like SNF to TNF.
The other flex eligible options are weak
Sometimes the scheduling is favorable and other times, well, it’s not. Looking at the remaining options, aside from the protected divisional games and Ravens-Bills, you have:
- Atlanta Falcons (3-4) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-5)
- Arizona Cardinals (2-5) at Dallas Cowboys (3-4)
- New England Patriots (4-3) at Miami Dolphins (1-6)
- Indianapolis Colts (2-5) at Jacksonville Jaguars (4-2)
- Tennessee Titans (1-6) at Cincinnati Bengals (4-2)
- Las Vegas Raiders (3-4) at New York Jets (2-5)
- Los Angeles Chargers (0-6) at Los Angeles Rams (3-4)
Not great. None of these matchups feature teams with a winning record, and only the Falcons and Buccaneers game seems to hold any playoff relevance due to the disappointing state of the NFC South. The NFL usually makes flex decisions at least 12 days in advance, so the Falcons-Bucs matchup wasn’t even a consideration.
The NFC East is still within reach for the Eagles and Commanders
If one had to argue for the relevance of the Eagles versus Commanders, the current situation in the NFC East might be a good angle.
With the top-ranked New York Giants on a bye week, they’ll remain at 4-2-1 as they head into Week 9, while the Dallas Cowboys are right behind them at 3-4. Should the Eagles win, they would trail the Giants by just one win; a win for the Commanders, however, would place them two games back of the Giants. They really need to learn how to manage the clock, though, especially after a recent loss to New York.
Besides that, this could potentially be the last game for Dan Quinn as the Commanders’ head coach if he suffers another loss. And that’s, well, the most exciting angle for this matchup.
The NFL has complicated the process of removing bad games from prime-time
Prepare for this sort of situation until at least the NFL has the chance to exit its current media rights deal at the end of the 2029 season. With the robust protections in place for FOX and CBS, more standalone windows for international games, and the introduction of special broadcasts during the holiday season, the league now has various time slots to cater to. This ultimately results in fewer options for swapping out unappealing matchups like Eagles vs. Commanders for more exciting ones.
Ironically, the NFL has made the original intent of flex scheduling much harder to achieve.
