They should just scrap Thursday Night Football altogether – Week 15 NFL TV Schedule

I mean honestly, it has gotten out of hand.  And other than a couple games (which I am sure were accidents by the scheduler and not legitimately good matchups created on purpose) the games are terrible.  And involve at least one terrible team (if not both).  When college football is on I almost never watch the Thursday nighter.  I watched a decent amount of last week’s only because there was no college game and the two teams were upper echelon teams.  Anyway, the NFL has a lot of work to do with scheduling and this is only one aspect of it.  The London games are another issue altogether.

Let’s get to the schedule and then find the creamy nougat in the centre:

Thursday/Saturday Primetime

Los Angeles at Seattle	Thursday, 8:30, NBC, SNE/SNP/SNW/SN1
Miami at NY Jets	Saturday, 8:30, Sportsnet

Sunday Early

	CBS	FOX	CTV	TSN	OTHER
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati	Seattle, Spokane, Burlington, Boston		BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan		CITL
Tennessee at Kansas City
Indianapolis at Minnesota	Minneapolis, Detroit		Winnipeg, Ottawa		CKPR, CHEX, CKWS
Jacksonville at Houston
Cleveland at Buffalo	Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester
Detroit at NY Giants		Detroit, Rochester, Burlington, Boston	Northern Ontario, Kitchener, Toronto, Montreal, Atlantic
Green Bay at Chicago		Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane		TSN1, TSN4, TSN5
Philadelphia at Baltimore

Sunday Late

	CBS	FOX	CTV	CTV Two	TSN	OTHER
New England at Denver	All affiliates		All affiliates (except Atlantic)	Atlantic		CKPR, CHEX, CKWS, CITL
Oakland at San Diego
San Francisco at Atlanta		Minneapolis, Buffalo			TSN1, TSN3*, TSN4, TSN5
New Orleans at Arizona

Sunday/Monday Primetime

Tampa Bay at Dallas	Sunday, 8:30, NBC/TSN 1/3/4/5
Carolina at Washington	Monday, 8:30, TSN 1/3/4/5

Creamy Nougat in the Centre

• See? Case in point.  Rams-Seahawks?  No thanks.  I might watch a few minutes here and there tonight but nothing substantial.
• And now we have a Saturday night game on top of this. I find it interesting that college football tries their very best to avoid scheduling games the same time as the NFL yet the NFL doesn’t give two shits about doing the same thing on their end.  And again, look at the calibre of the game.  Dolphins-Jets?  I’d rather watch the bowl games to be honest.
• Well, at least Sunday gives us some good fare. Big early game is easily the Lions and the Giants.  Winner basically clinches a playoff spot with two weeks left.  The other could be in an interesting spot come Week 17.
• Could Cleveland win their first game of the season in Buffalo? It could happen.  And if it does, I fully expect a Rex Ryan shitcanning sometime in the next month.
• Marvin Lewis also has his job on the line (I think) as the Bengals host the Steelers. I think Marvin is a good coach but he needs to move on to a new opportunity.  And sometimes that happens in professional sports.  The head guy has been there much too long and the team needs to move in a different direction.
• Basically everyone gets the Patriots-Broncos game late on Sunday. Did Jim Nantz and Greg Gumbel have an oil wrestling match to determine who got to call this game?
• The Raiders and Chargers are playing and no one gets this game (other than you greasy RedZone and Sunday Ticket people). I get that the NE-DEN game is huge but this game should get a bit of love.  Sometimes I don’t get the scheduling we get up here for NFL games.
• A note on the Niners-Falcons game: TSN3 will join the game in progress after the Jets game is complete.  My best guess is between 6:00 and 6:30.
• If the Cowboys lose two in a row expect the quarterback “controversy” in Dallas to become the lead story for the next week. I almost feel bad for Dak Prescott in this situation.  Then I remember I almost never feel bad for professional athletes in general.

Picture of the Playoffs

I am going to start looking at playoff-clinching scenarios from now on with the schedule.  Makes it easy since there’s only three weeks remaining.  Here goes:

New England

• Clinches the AFC East with a win or a Miami loss.
• Clinches a first round bye with a win or (a Miami loss and a Pittsburgh loss) or (a Miami loss and a Kansas City win).

Kansas City

• Clinches a playoff berth with a win or (a Denver loss and a Baltimore loss) or (a Denver loss and a Pittsburgh loss).

Oakland

• Clinches a playoff berth with:
  • A win or
  • A Miami loss and a Pittsburgh loss and a Denver loss or
  • A Miami loss and a Pittsburgh loss and a Kansas City win or
  • A Miami loss and a Baltimore loss and a Denver loss or
  • A Miami loss and a Baltimore loss and a Kansas City win

Dallas

• Clinches the NFC East and a first round bye with a win and a Giants loss.

Detroit

• Clinches the NFC North with a win and a Green Bay loss.

NY Giants

• Clinches a playoff berth with a win and a Washington loss and a Minnesota loss and a Green Bay loss.

Seattle

• Clinches the NFC West with a win or an Arizona loss.

So, like always, it will come down to the last two weeks.  The NFL desperately hopes that a lot of it has to wait for Week 17 as this makes for a lot of excitement and a lot of people watching.  Last season had very little on the line in the last week of the regular season.  The league is hoping to reverse that.

Alright so there’s a game tonight and then on Saturday night as well.  Also there’s some college football tomorrow night and bowl games start Saturday.  I have the bowl game rankings post yet to do and will post that tomorrow.  Enjoy the game tonight (well, whoever decides to watch it, enjoy).