Which game gets flexed to Sunday night in week 17? (1 Viewer)

[Raider Nation]

Last year it was St. Louis at Seattle, if you recall.

Although NFL.com’s schedule now leaves this out, the season finishes with an NBC primetime game on New Year’s Day — and it can flex a Sunday afternoon game into that national slot.Normally, flexed games have to be picked 12 days in advance. But for the final weekend, the NFL can wait until after this weekend’s action. And lucky for the NFL — which always seems lucky — no teams have reached their maximum prime time appearances and neither CBS nor Fox has protected any final-weekend games from being moved to NBC’s prime time.Meaning, for the NFL season’s final game, anything goes.Here are the NFL (and NBC) dream scenarios:1. The Cowboys, consistently the NFL’s top TV draw, and the big-market Giants win this weekend and meet in Week 17 with the NFC East title on the line. Boffo TV box office, but not for Fox — which could lose that game to NBC.1 (a). This weekend, Denver loses at Buffalo and Kansas City beats Oakland and Detroit beats San Diego. Not too far-fetched. And here’s where NBC execs take a grateful knee and point skyward: In Week 17, Tim Tebow’s Broncos would play Kansas City, with ex-Denver QB Kyle Orton, to try win the AFC West — with CBS likely losing that game to NBC.

 

[xfactor99]

Article is wrong on a few points. First New Orleans is maxed out of prime time appearances having appeared on SNF 3 times and MNF 2 times. The maximum is 6 games - but one game has to be on the NFL Network. The Saints have none of those so they're maxed out already. Second CBS and FOX can't protect any games in Week 17.

Dallas - Giants looks like the frontrunner right now but a couple of things could mess that up. One if Dallas wins and the Giants lose in Week 16 then Dallas clinches the division and the game's irrelevant. Second if Philly beats Dallas and the Giants lose to the Jets then Dallas - Giants is somewhat contingent on the Philly - Washington game. Then what would be best is if both games were played at the same time. Which leads us to....

The scenario 1a. If those 3 things happen then Kansas City and Denver is win and you're in and the NFL has ALWAYS gone with those scenarios over anything else for the last game. Plus it's Orton vs. Tebow, gonna get near-comparable hype to Dallas - Giants on that alone. Now if Denver beats Buffalo and clinches the division, then things get rather sucky and the NFL might be forced to look at a game for playoff positioning/contingent on other game results like Baltimore - Cincinnati.

 

[zftcg]

I know setting the schedule is probably one of those logistical nightmares that requires a PhD to do properly. And also, obviously, there are frequently surprises over the course of a season that make a seemingly attractive matchup suddenly unwatchable (*cough* NE-Indy *cough*).

Having said all that, I'm puzzled by many of the divisional matchups on tap for Week 17. Why no Steelers-Ravens, Jets-Pats or Saints-Falcons? Again, there are no guarantees, but even at the beginning of the season those matchups would have seemed likely to be attractive ones. Meanwhile, there was very little chance that Saints-Panthers or Steelers-Browns would have been. In fact, looking at the entire Week 17 slate, the only ones I would have pegged at the beginning of the season as potentially exciting were Cowboys-Giants and maybe Chargers-Raiders (and really, that's probably giving the schedulers too much credit, since it's hard to go wrong with the NFC East and its three glamour teams). You'd think the NFL would make sure to keep a couple big rivalry games in its back pocket. That would also protect them in a worst-case scenario, where none of the games had in-or-out playoff implications. Even absent those, Steelers-Ravens is likely to draw at least a decent audience.

 

[xfactor99]

See that's EXACTLY why you don't put attractive divisional rivalries in Week 17. Steelers-Ravens, Jets-Pats, and Saints-Falcons were all primetime games in the middle of the season because they are guaranteed ratings bonanzas. There's no guarantee those games will matter in Week 17 for whatever reason, one team might rest their starters, another might be eliminated and then you run the risk of what should be a good matchup of being a dud. In Week 17 what matters is if a game has playoff implications or not, more than how big the markets are. St. Louis - Seattle got the highest ratings of all games last year.

 

[Please See Mine]

Article is wrong on a few points. First New Orleans is maxed out of prime time appearances having appeared on SNF 3 times and MNF 2 times. The maximum is 6 games - but one game has to be on the NFL Network. The Saints have none of those so they're maxed out already. Second CBS and FOX can't protect any games in Week 17.Dallas - Giants looks like the frontrunner right now but a couple of things could mess that up. One if Dallas wins and the Giants lose in Week 16 then Dallas clinches the division and the game's irrelevant. Second if Philly beats Dallas and the Giants lose to the Jets then Dallas - Giants is somewhat contingent on the Philly - Washington game. Then what would be best is if both games were played at the same time. Which leads us to....The scenario 1a. If those 3 things happen then Kansas City and Denver is win and you're in and the NFL has ALWAYS gone with those scenarios over anything else for the last game. Plus it's Orton vs. Tebow, gonna get near-comparable hype to Dallas - Giants on that alone. Now if Denver beats Buffalo and clinches the division, then things get rather sucky and the NFL might be forced to look at a game for playoff positioning/contingent on other game results like Baltimore - Cincinnati.

Dallas-NYG is totally contingent on the Eagles in that scenario. If the Eagles beat the Skins, the Giants are out, so they would have no incentive.

 

[Stompin' Tom Connors]

See that's EXACTLY why you don't put attractive divisional rivalries in Week 17. Steelers-Ravens, Jets-Pats, and Saints-Falcons were all primetime games in the middle of the season because they are guaranteed ratings bonanzas. There's no guarantee those games will matter in Week 17 for whatever reason, one team might rest their starters, another might be eliminated and then you run the risk of what should be a good matchup of being a dud. In Week 17 what matters is if a game has playoff implications or not, more than how big the markets are. St. Louis - Seattle got the highest ratings of all games last year.

Really?Rivalries spike ratings, especially ones where teams have national (as opposed to regional) followings.

Last year in November, I remember the Cowboys, who had only one win at that point, faced the Giants on SNF and drew the largest overnight rating of the season to that point. If a game that meant absolutely nothing to either team drew that kind of audience, I think as an NFL/TV exec, you want the teams with the biggest draws in that game -- like nationally-popular teams in division rivalry games.

While STL/SEA is still a divisional rivalry, not sure many people care about these teams outside of their individual markets. I'm highly dubious this game got higher ratings than, say, the Thanksgiving games, let alone other matchups between bigger market teams in the latter half of the season -- playoff implications or not.

 

[Raider Nation]

Dallas @ NYG for the NFC East crown on Sunday night.

TAMPA BAY AT ATLANTA, BALTIMORE AT CINCINNATI and PITTSBURGH AT CLEVELAND all moved to 4:15 EST.