First big flex decision for Week 17 is due today

Week 17 features eight standalone games. And the NFL will have some big decisions to make regarding how to configure the games that can be shifted from one window to another.

The first big decision is due today. If Seahawks at Bears will be dumped from Thursday Night Football, today’s the day to do it.

While the rule is 28 days, the devil in the details comes from the counting. If Friday is Day One, then Day 28 is the day of the Week 17 Thursday night game. (Case in point: The Week 16 Thursday night game between the Browns and Bengals was swapped out for Broncos-Chargers last Friday.)

The problem for the league in Week 17 comes from the lack of options. Complicating matters is the presence of more than a few non-contenders.

Week 17 starts on Wednesday, with two Christmas games: Chiefs-Steelers, Ravens-Texans. (Netflix got lucky in the scheduling; here’s hoping it gets lucky in the execution.) On Thursday, it’s Seahawks-Bears (for now). On Saturday, three games will be peeled away from five Sunday possibilities, to be played as a Saturday tripleheader. The five potential games for the shift to Saturday are Broncos-Bengals, Cardinals-Rams, Chargers-Patriots, Colts-Giants, and Falcons-Commanders.

On Sunday night, the Dolphins visit the Browns. Week 17 ends with Lions at 49ers.

If the NFL moves Seahawks-Bears out of Thursday night, which game will go there? Packers-Vikings (a presumptive candidate for Thursday night and Sunday night) can’t be moved away from Fox, because Vikings-Packers was televised by CBS. It’s a strange quirk of the recent minimization of the traditional Sunday afternoon lines; for all home-and-home division rivalries, at least one of the two games must be televised by the network associated with the corresponding conference.

That’s why, for example, the Week 11 game between the Ravens and Steelers wasn’t moved to Sunday night. Because the rematch will be televised on Saturday, December 21 by Fox, the other game had to be televised by CBS.

So, at most, Packers-Vikings would replace Cowboys-Eagles at 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox, with Cowboys-Eagles moving to 1:00 p.m. ET.

With both the Bears and Dolphins losing on Thanksgiving, Seahawks-Bears and Dolphins-Browns become even less attractive for Week 17.

Of the potential replacements for either night, Falcons-Commanders makes the most sense for a prime-time flex. But that only covers one of the two Week 17 evening windows.

The problem for the NFL is that, as to Thursday night, the decision has to be made today. That could result in Falcons-Commanders being regarded as a bird in the hand for Thursday night, with the league then monitoring the next three weekends (Week 13, Week 14, Week 15) before deciding which game would go to Sunday night in Week 17. Frankly, however, Cardinals-Rams seems to be the only option with a chance for both teams to be relevant.

Regardless of how it all plays out (and the first big clue comes today), this is an example of what can happen when expanded standalone windows happen at the end of a regular season that features too many have-nots.