KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With the New England Patriots sitting on a 2-9 record with no realistic shot at the playoffs, many Chiefs fans have wondered if the team’s Week 15 visit to the Patriots may get flexed out of the Monday Night Football schedule.
Don’t reschedule your watch parties quite yet, says an NFL official.
Mike North, vice president of broadcast planning for the NFL, appeared on the Sports Illustrated Media podcast with Jimmy Traina and said it wasn’t likely the league would flex Chiefs-Patriots out of the prime Monday night timeslot.
“In a vacuum, it would be surprising if ESPN would ask the NFL, ‘Hey, we only get two Chiefs games and Super Bowl champs and league MVP Patrick Mahomes, we’d like to trade that one back,'” North said. “That’s unlikely, but then you go look at the Sunday afternoon window, and you’re wondering are there games, or a game, that might be a little under-distributed that isn’t going to completely ruin CBS of Fox’s afternoon if we took that one.”
Many factors have to be weighed when flexing games out of primetime slots, North explained. Week 15 is further complicated because five games are currently slated as “to be determined.” Those games include Atlanta (5-6) at Carolina (1-10), Minnesota (6-6) at Cincinnati (5-6), Chicago (4-8) at Cleveland (7-4), Denver (6-5) at Detroit (8-3) and Pittsburgh (7-4) at Indianapolis (6-5). Three of those games will be selected to air on an NFL Network tripleheader on Saturday, Dec. 16. While these games are eligible to be flexed to Monday night, Chiefs-Patriots wouldn’t move to Saturday; the Monday night game can only be moved to Sunday afternoon.
If the NFL is willing to move a key game, such as the Steelers at Colts, from its own network to ESPN — and assuming ESPN prefers the matchup — that would be more than a fair trade for CBS or Fox landing Chiefs at Patriots. the NFL Network would be the big loser, however. Also of note — all flex scheduling changes must be approved by the commissioner.
If you’re thinking one of the big games on Sunday, Dec. 17 might get flexed to Monday night, that’s also unlikely. Fox has two games airing at 3:25 p.m. CT — Dallas at Buffalo and Philadelphia at Seattle. More viewers tune into the 3:25 p.m. window than the Monday night timeslot, so it’s unlikely Fox would give up either of those games for Chiefs-Patriots.
Plus, North made a point to clear up a misconception about the purpose of flexible scheduling.
“The object of flexible scheduling is never about getting the best game into primetime,” North explained. “It’s about getting out of a game that has fallen short of expectations, the crystal ball in May wasn’t clear and now both teams are eliminated from playoff contention.”
The Chiefs-Patriots game only has playoff implications for the Chiefs but it’s not devoid of storylines. The Chiefs are the NFL’s second-biggest ratings draw behind Dallas, North said, which makes the team popular for primetime games. Boston is also the nation’s No. 8 television market. Plus add in the allure of Andy Reid against Bill Belichick and it’s easy to see why ESPN may want to keep the game.
The league has until 12 days before the Monday night game to move it to Sunday afternoon, so a decision will be made no later than Wednesday, Dec. 6. If the decision to flex the game involves a Saturday contest, however, the league would likely make such a change earlier.
While North says it’s unlikely the NFL will move Chiefs-Patriots, there’s another Kansas City game far more likely to see its kickoff time changed. A lesser-known flexible scheduling adjustment is that the NFL can move Sunday afternoon kickoffs. The league announced such a change last week when it moved this weekend’s Denver at Houston contest from 3:05 p.m. to noon, swapping with Carolina at Tampa Bay. While the league didn’t explain its reasoning, it’s believed the move was made to accommodate CBS from having the Houston game airing against San Francisco at Philadelphia on Fox in the late afternoon window.
In Week 17, the Chiefs are scheduled to host Cincinnati at 3:25 p.m. on Dec. 31. When the schedule was released in May, this was viewed as a rematch of the AFC Championship game and a battle between Mahomes and Joe Burrow. With Burrow on injured reserve and the Bengals below .500, it’s quite possible this game gets moved to a noon kickoff. CBS is scheduled to air Miami at Baltimore and Tennessee at Houston in the noon window.
“If Cincinnati and Kansas City isn’t what we thought it was going to be, then there’s another game that weekend,” North said. “Maybe it’s Miami-Baltimore, and instead of Cincy-KC being the 4:25 (ET) anchor, maybe that game moves to 1, Miami-Baltimore takes the national doubleheader slot and 30 million people get to watch that game.”
