The NFL won’t flex Washington’s Week 13 game against Denver out of Sunday Night Football, The Athletic’s Nicki Jhabvala reported on Monday.
Washington enters its bye week at 3-8 with six straight losses. The Commanders are 0-4 in nationally televised games this season and will almost certainly start Marcus Mariota at quarterback against the 9-2 Broncos. Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow in the fourth quarter of Washington’s 38-14 loss to Seattle on Nov. 2 and hasn’t played since.
Despite Mariota’s lack of appeal for a national audience, the NFL had limited options for flex scheduling. Texans-Colts would’ve made sense as a divisional matchup with playoff implications, but CBS auto-protected the game. Since Houston and Indianapolis play twice this season and the Week 18 rematch is still unassigned, CBS can automatically keep the first meeting. CBS isn’t giving that up, especially with Houston already scheduled for Sunday Night Football the following week against Kansas City. The Texans are also on Thursday Night Football in Week 12.
CBS can also protect Bills-Steelers in its 4:25 p.m. primetime slot. Fox can protect Rams-Panthers, and the Rams will have just played on Sunday Night Football in Week 12. The only other viable matchup was Vikings-Seahawks, but that lost some appeal with Minnesota in a mini freefall, and Sam Darnold throwing four interceptions in a loss to the Rams in Week 11.
The flex rules allow NBC to make changes with 12 days’ notice through Week 14, then with 6 days’ notice in Weeks 15-17. We’ll probably be having this same conversation in the coming weeks about Vikings-Cowboys in Week 15, and then, inevitably, about Bengals-Dolphins in Week 16.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.