Not by the league, they have only announced the SNF game. Nothing has yet been officially moved to the late afternoon slot other than those already scheduled in western time zones.


Quite, why would they want to get lower ratings?

Erm...

http://www.detroitlions.com/news/art...8-c82c8b6fe6f5

How is the NFC 'sorted out'? You have five teams tied on 11-4 going into the last week plus a winner take all match for the NFC South. 4 teams go into the final weekend with the chance to be the 1 seed if they win or the 6 seed if they lose (or the 2, 3 or 5 seed depending on other results). Dallas could be the 1, 2 or 3 seed depending on their game and the other results.

5 of the 6 teams in the NFC playoffs may be known but there is a huge amount of excitement left for next week.

Seeding order aint of huge interest to me. Bar the winner takes all match between the Falcons and Panthers, its all a bit "meh" in the NFC.

There's a massive difference between the seeds. Green Bay and Seattle are different teams home and away and the bye week is a big advantage. Next week will have a huge impact on who gets to the Super Bowl from the NFC.

What part of "aint of huge interest to me" were you not understanding?

No big deal, you originally said it was all sorted out and I was just pointing out it was far from sorted. Obviously you're free to be uninterested even if you'll be missing out on some good drama.

With Denver's loss last night there has been some interesting flex decisions made.

CBS now gets the winner take all battle in the NFC South and that game moves to the late afternoon slot. You would imagine that will be the Sky game even with the Lions @ Packers also available in that slot.

With nothing left to play for the Pats game, which would have moved to the late slot if the 1 seed was still in play, stays in the early window.

The AFC wildcard battle looks like the main (or really only) interest from the early games so Sky will presumably show San Diego @ KC given that San Diego control their own destiny.

The NBC choice now looks utterly ridiculous.

The choice had more to do with the NFL and their other television partners rather than NBC. According to Sports Illustrated, the NFL had for the past four years flexed games that would normally air on FOX into that Week 17 SNF slot. They decided this year in the interest of fairness that a CBS game (Bengals v Steelers) would be the flexed game

In addition, there is still plenty for Pit and Cincy to play for. The winner will host a playoff game, the loser will be on the road. And the Bengals can still finish 2nd in the AFC (although that possibility may have gone by the time their game kicks off depending on the Denver result).

Carolina at Atlanta does have the appeal of win or go home, but it's two not very good teams. And the NFL didn't want to leave the decision about the Sunday night game until after last night's result was known. All in all, I think they made a good decision, arguably the best decision under the circumstances. Could also have gone with Detroit at Green Bay, or SD at KC.

I don't see any problem with Cincy/Steelers being the late game. It should be a more competitive game than Detroit @ GB and the NFC South game would be a poor way to close out the regular season given that it is two thoroughly mediocre teams.


The NFL's explanation doesn't really work though given that they then turned around and took Carolina/Atlanta off FOX anyway and gave it CBS. How are FOX better off in this scenario than losing that game to NBC?

Yes it's Chargers v Chiefs & Panthers v Falcons on Sky.

Fox will still have 8 games to show as they get a game flexed TO them (Jags/Houston). The last 4 years they only had 7 matches whilst CBS got the full allocation of 8.

CBS got the NFC South battle as Fox had the stronger looking set of matches and CBS had the only "winner takes the division" match taken off them: this way CBS, NBC and Fox get one of those matches each.

Yeah but the NFL said they didn't put Car/Atl in primetime because they had taken FOX's best game the last 4 years and didn't want to do it again. Then they took it anyway. FOX is actually worse off in this scenario if you believe Car/Atl is the best game of the day because now it is directly up against FOX's other games in the same timeslot rather than being on it's own after the FOX games are finished.

They could have flexed Car/Atl to NBC and then still flexed the Texans game to FOX to sort out the 8 games/7games issue.

Basically I'm just calling bullshit on the NFL's explanation. They flexed Cincy/Pitt because they think it's a better game and will get better ratings. Nothing to do with helping out FOX because they haven't helped them.

You are probably reading too much into the word "help", I read it in terms of the number of matches each broadcaster gets to show, and nothing more.

There should be some heads in hands at league office as they have now made a mess of the final weeks schedule

If they used previous years as a reason to shift a CBS game to SNF they've gone and shafted Fox anyway by moving their second best game and giving them Houston/Jacksonville

Fox now has a dud early slate with nothing of interest, while CBS now has two important games in San Diego/Kansas City and Carolina/Atlanta, one in each slot.

A game like St Louis/Seattle could have been flexed to CBS, given the implications of the NFC West and the No. 1 seed

If I was Fox I'd be concerned at the number of times CBS has come out the better from cross-flexing this season

The people that come out the best in terms of Week 17 are NFL RedZone!

These things will probably even themselves out over the length of the nine (?) year contract, though.

I did notice a fair number of the Buffalo games got moved this year. Fox have shown them five times when in a normal year they would only show them twice!

You would hope so, the concern would be that if CBS and NFL Network extend the Thursday Night Football rights the relationship might get even closer.

A lot of this could have been avoided if they didn't jump into moving Green Bay/Detroit at the same time as they moved Cincy and Pittsburgh, they started to tie their hands

The Sky website showing Sunday's two live games as The Chargers at The Chiefs, followed by The Panthers at The Falcons.

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/nfl-on-sky

Just noticed I'm really slow with this. ooooops

Commentary teams for week 17.

No TNF or MNF in week 17.

Sunday 18:00 Chargers @ Chiefs - CBS - Ian Eagle, Dan Fouts, Jenny Dell.
Sunday 21:25 Panthers @ Falcons - CBS- Jim Nantz, Phil Simms, Tracy Wolfson.
Monday 01:30 Bengals @ Steelers - NBC - Al Michaels, Chris Collingsworth, Michelle Tafoya.

I certainly would be concerned especially as CBS's relationship seems so close with the NFL.

2014 Regular Season Stats

Total number of games shown in the UK - 89.

Week 1 -16 - TNF, Sunday Early, Sunday Late, SNF, and MNF.
Week 17 - Sunday Early, Sunday Late, SNF.
Thanksgiving - Early and Late.
Christmas Saturday - Late and Sat Night Football.
Extra MNF in Week 1
International Series match - Early Kick off.

Appearances by team on television in the UK.

12. Dallas.
10. Denver, Philadelphia.
9. New England, Seattle.
8. Cincinnati, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis.
7. Chicago, Kansas, New York Giants, San Diego, San Francisco.
6. Detroit, New Orleans.
5. Arizona, Atlanta, Carolina, Miami.
4. Baltimore, Washington.
3. Cleveland, New York Jets, Oakland.
2. Houston, Jacksonville, Minnesota, St Louis, Tennessee.
1. Buffalo, Tampa Bay.

Notes for the above.

TNF - Neither Detroit or Philadelphia played in the TNF slot, however both teams did play in separate games in the Early and Late slots respectively on Thanksgiving Thursday. Green Bay and Seattle appeared twice in TNF. Both in the opening fixture and then in Week 5 for Green Bay and Thanksgiving night for Seattle.

SNF - Dallas, Denver, New England and Pittsburgh all had three appearances in the Sunday night slot.

MNF - Chicago, Indianapolis, New Orleans, New York Giants, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington all featured twice on MNF.

Sunday Early and Late games.

Sky have some degree of choice when it comes to these games. Cincinnati had the most appearances (four) in the early slot with Denver featuring the most (five) in the late slot. The full breakdown for appearances is as follows (Early game/Late game).

6. Dallas (4/2).
5. Denver (0/5).
4. Cincinnati (4/0), New England (2/2), Kansas (3/1).
3. Detroit (3/0), Green Bay (1/2), Indianapolis (2/1), Miami (2/1), San Diego (1/2).
2. Arizona (1/1), Atlanta (1/1), Carolina (1/1), Cleveland (2/0), New York Giants (0/2), Pittsburgh (2/0), San Francisco (0/2), Seattle (1/1).
1. Baltimore (1/0), Chicago (1/0), Jacksonville (1/0), Minnesota (1/0), New Orleans (1/0), New York Jets(0/1), Oakland (1/0)

The appearances above include two of the International Series Matches (Miami @ Oakland and Dallas @ Jacksonville). Had these not been International Series matches then it is questionable whether Sky would have selected them. Sky have selected at least one of the primary games In every week apart from Week 5. (Primary games are those shown predominantly across the USA on CBS or Fox.) In Week 5 Sky featured Chicago @ Carolina followed by NY Jets @ San Diego. The CBS doubleheader showed Houston @ Dallas then Kansas @ San Francisco. Fox's lead game that week was Arizona @ Denver.

Sky have featured two primary games on nine occasions with three official doubleheaders - Fox (week 11 & 14) and CBS (week 16). In week 8 Sky did show Detroit @ Atlanta and Philadelphia @ Arizona which were both covered by Fox, and due to the early kick off at Wembley were both shown as primary games across the USA but not as an official Fox doubleheader. The Early kick off International Series game (Detroit @ Atlanta) makes up one of five extra games. The others being Chicago @ Detroit and Philadelphia @ Dallas on Thanksgiving, and Philadelphia @ Washington and San Diego @ San Francisco last Saturday.

Happy Christmas to you all!

The Cowboys seem to be NFL's version of Manchester United in tv rating terms in the US - their games always draw big ratings, hance they are nearly always shown in primetime or the 4.25pm slot.

They are "America's Team", and this year lived up to the hype. Plus they have long term, meaningful rivalries against the other three NFC East teams.