Week 14 (December 12):
- Tentative game: Philadelphia @ Dallas
- Prospects: 7-4 v. 3-8. The Cowboys’ hard charge stalling against the Saints probably doomed this game to be flexed out.
- Protected games: Patriots-Bears (CBS).
- Other possible games mentioned on last week’s Watch and their records: Bucs (7-4)-Redskins (5-6), Jags (6-5)-Raiders (5-6), and Chiefs (7-4)-Chargers (6-5).
- Impact of Monday Night Football: None.
- Analysis: I said last week that Chiefs-Chargers was the sexiest game and that a Chargers win would lock up another Sunday night date; not only did that happen, if lopsidedness wasn’t a factor everything would have broken down perfectly for Chiefs-Chargers, with the Chiefs also winning and the Eagles, Cowboys, Bucs, Redskins, Jags, and Raiders all losing, with the end result that Chiefs-Chargers now sports the best pair of records among unprotected games and in fact is the only such game involving two teams above .500. The Chiefs aren’t a name team, but part of the point of flex scheduling is to give more exposure to teams you might not have picked before the season. (Although… have I been ignoring Dolphins-Jets? It would max the Jets out but Bills-Jets will probably be unimportant… the bigger problem is how lopsided it is…)
- Final prediction: Kansas City Chiefs @ San Diego Chargers (with the caveat in parenthesis above).