Week 12 (November 23):
- Tentative game: Dallas @ NY Giants
- Prospects: 7-3 v. 3-6. Pretty lopsided, but the Cowboys being flexed out of SNF would probably be a harbinger of the apocalypse, especially when they’re not the ones dragging it down.
- Protected games: Dolphins-Broncos (CBS).
- Other possible games mentioned on Tuesday’s Watch and their records: Lions (7-2)-Patriots (7-2), Cardinals (8-1)-Seahawks (6-3).
- Impact of Monday Night Football: None.
- Analysis: Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if ANY of these three games ends up the Sunday night game; Lions-Patriots has the best combination of name value and good records, but in terms of pure quality isn’t really that far ahead of Cardinals-Seahawks, and I continue to maintain that it’s the best candidate for a crossflex to CBS. On the other hand, NBC is already slated to air the other half of Seahawks-Cardinals, which does matter, and while I got a lot of comments on my last post that seemed to agree only that this game WOULD be flexed out, only disagreeing on which game it would be flexed out for, anyone who thinks NBC wouldn’t want (or the NFL wouldn’t want them to have) a name team well below .500 when the Cowboys are involved doesn’t know their history. This is probably the closest scenario there is to a situation where the Cowboys would be flexed out, but while that means I wouldn’t be surprised if the game gets flexed out, it doesn’t make it particularly likely.
- Final prediction: Dallas Cowboys @ New York Giants (no change) (Lions-Patriots if there’s a flex).
I was expecting the NFL to announce the final Week 12 schedule today. Now I am speculating that the final Week 12 schedule will be announce either on Monday or Tuesday.
Here are my last-minute remarks on Week 12. As of right now. CBS has five games in the early window while FOX has three games in the early window. I say Jets-Bills and Jaguars-Colts get crossflexed to FOX balance the schedule.
As for games in the late window. CBS has Dolphins vs Broncos (as all of us know that is not going anywhere other than CBS) I say Cardinals-Seahawks gets cross flexed to CBS and FOX has Redskins vs 49ers and Rams vs Chargers. So Cowboys and Giants will stay on NBC.
This is one case where I think you could see the following happen:
Cardinals-Seahawks to SNF (with NBC getting both games, not unprecedented since NBC had both Giants-Cowboys games a few years ago).
Cowboys-Giants from SNF to main late DH game on CBS. This more has to do with the trying to cut down on the gap in preparation time between the Cowboys and Eagles (who play the Titans at 1:00 PM on CBS) for their Thanksgiving Day showdown.
Jets-Bills (1:00 PM) AND Redskins-49ers (4:05 PM) cross-flexed to FOX. If Giants-Cowboys gets moved to CBS, then Jets-Bills MUST be moved to FOX because the NFL won’t have both New York teams on the same network on the same day. Redskins-49ers was on CBS in the first place due to the 50% rule concerning 4:05 PM ET games on the singleheader network (again, no game or set of games in the 4:05 PM ET slot on the singleheader network) can go to more than 50% of the country to protect the doubleheader network.
The multi-way switch (especially involving both New York teams) would eliminate a potential problem with the 4:05 PM slot in Week 12 because New York is almost certain if things stand to take a 4:05 PM game on FOX due to Jets-Bills being at 1:00. With other factors involved, this is one of the rare times flexing the Cowboys out of SNF makes sense on multiple fronts.
One other note:
If Cowboys-Giants got moved from SNF to the late slot on CBS, you could also see the NFL waive the normal rule about not starting games before 11:30 AM local time by moving Dolphins-Broncos to a rare 11:00 AM local time/1:00 PM ET start in Denver. You see a lot of 11:00 AM local time starts in college football so it would not be the first time that happened.
A lot of very interesting comments here. Even though I currently rate Arizona @ Seattle the pick I’d most want to have as the SNF game this week, I’d also not expect it due to their scheduled game on SNF on Week 15. And, of course, Morgan is right, in that it will probably be a sign of the apocalypse if the Cowboys get flexed out.
@ Walt That would be amazing to me if the Broncos get moved out of their usual 2pm MST. I don’t ever remember seeing them start a game at 11am MST, but in today’s NFL, I guess anything is possible.
Early Week 14 comment: If the Chargers lose to the Raiders & Rams in Week’s 11 & 12, I say their game vs. New England would be standing a good chance of being flexed out. Not likely to lose to the Raiders, but even a loss only to the Rams, could be enough, as there are starting to be a good amount of other options.
I think Cowboys-Giants a couple years ago was a unique situation because one was a pre-scheduled tentative and the other was a Week 17 division title game. I think the NFL would prefer to avoid it if possible, and that means not flexing into that situation.