NFL flexes Week 16 ‘Thursday Night Football’ matchup as Broncos-Chargers bumps Browns-Bengals

One of the biggest midseason scheduling changes in NFL history is taking place next month.

On Friday, the NFL announced the Week 16 game between the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals will be flexed out of “Thursday Night Football” and replaced with the Denver Broncos at Los Angeles Chargers.

This is the first time the league has used its “Thursday Night Football” flexible scheduling, which the league instituted in 2023. It will get a game that will surely have better playoff consequences into a prime-time slot while also changing the travel plans for fans of four teams just days before Christmas.

As it stands now — four weeks before Thursday, Dec. 19 — the 3-8 Browns traveling to face the 4-7 Bengals is hardly as appetizing as a matchup between the 6-5 Broncos and 7-3 Chargers in SoFi Stadium for what could be a battle for AFC postseason positioning.

Browns at Bengals will now take place on Sunday, Dec. 22 at 1 p.m. (Fox). The Thursday, Dec. 19 game between the Broncos and Chargers will air on Amazon Prime.

The league wrestled all week with whether to move the game. Factors such as detailed broadcast rules, competitive advantages related to rest and moving games on a holiday week were all considered.

The NFL introduced flexible scheduling for “Thursday Night Football” after owner approval in May 2023, and there was always a high bar to meet to flex a game. First, the league had to make the call no fewer than 28 days from kickoff. Only games between Weeks 13-17 would even be considered for Thursday flexing. And only two Thursday night games could get flexed all year.

The NFL wanted to pass Thursday night flexing during the March 2023 league meetings, but team owners ultimately decided to table the measure. The league initially wanted to have just 15 days’ notice instead of 28. Owners were mostly split until Giants owner John Mara called the idea “abusive” toward paying customers, sources told CBS Sports then.

Asked then about the fans whose travel would be impacted by such a drastic change in scheduling, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said it was a “very, very important point.”

“Every owner in that room lives and breathes sensitivity to those fans,” Jones said. “But only 7% of our fans have ever been inside a stadium. Seven. Percent. So you’ve got a lot of fans — a huge majority of the fans that are out there — that this is good for them.”

The NFL, its fans and broadcast partners are accustomed to Sunday night flexing. For nearly two decades the league has occasionally moved Sunday afternoon games into the Sunday prime-time slot. Last year, the league allowed flexing for both Thursday and Monday night games.  

None of the Thursday night games last season were ultimately flexed, but the league did make its first Monday night flex. The league dumped Chiefs at Patriots in Week 15 for Eagles at Seahawks.

Week 17 could also see some flexing. The Seahawks are scheduled to face the Bears on Thursday, Dec. 26, and a decision on that game won’t have to be made until next week. There are also five games that are currently TBD on the schedule, as three of them will be played on Saturday and the other two will be played on Sunday.

Those five games — Broncos-Bengals, Cardinals-Rams, Colts-Giants, Chargers-Patriots and Falcons-Commanders — will be scheduled “at a later date during the season,” according to the league’s flex policy.