NFL Flex Schedule Moves Ravens vs. Redskins to Sunday Night 12/7

NBC has exercised their first Flex option for the 2008 season, moving the Washington Redskins at Baltimore Ravens game from 1:00 PM on Fox, to primetime Sunday Night Football on NBC at 8:15 PM ET.

Under the NFL Flex Schedule, NBC is allowed to move one game from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night during weeks 11 through 17. This is the first week NBC has elected to switch a game.

We have updated our 2008 NFL Flex Schedule page, which breaks down the rules on the Flex Schedule and the running breakdown of how many times each team has appeared in primetime and on NBC. (Under the rules, only three teams can appear 6 times in primetime during the season and no team can appear more than four times on NBC).

With NBC already scheduled to broadcast the New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys in Week 15, it is unlikely that we will see any more schedule changes until Week 16 or 17. It is unthinkable that NBC would elect to change that blockbuster NFC east match up between the Giants and Cowboys.

In Week 16, NBC is currently scheduled to carry San Diego at Tampa Bay, but they have until December 9th to announce a potential change. The potential games that are available on CBS include CIN@CLE, BUF@DEN, MIA@KC, PIT@TEN, NYJ@SEA, HOU@OAK. For Fox, the potentially available games are PHI@WAS, ARI@NE, NO@DET, ATL@MIN, CAR@NYG and SF@STL.

This year it has been difficult to really speculate on which games may be moved, since we have been unable to obtain information about which games CBS and Fox protected. Every year, CBS and FOX are able to protect five of their games in weeks 11 through 16 (no games can be protected in week 17). However, our contacts at NFL, CBS and FOX all declined to disclose which games have been protected.

We will post more in a few weeks, but if anyone has any inside info on which games may be protected in Week 16, please contact us.

So, I guess we can let the speculation begin about Week 16 and Week 17. Really no teams are in jeopardy of being excluded from the Flex Schedule due to the caps on primetime appearances or NBC appearances.

Tags: NFL, NFL Flex Schedule

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