The NFL is lifting a previous restriction on how many times a team can play in prime time to get the best game possible for Week 17’s final game.
Over the past decade, one of the highlights for the NFL was the decision to allow flex scheduling for games in the last seven weeks of the season with its Sunday night broadcast partner, NBC. The idea worked so well in getting the best game in prime time that flex scheduling was expanded to the afternoon games two seasons ago.
One of the few restrictions with flex scheduling was the limit on how many times a team could appear in a prime time game. In the past, that number has been six, with three teams each year allowed to exceed and play an additional game based on how the schedule worked.
Now, in an effort to have the final Sunday night game of the year be a “play-in game” for the postseason (or have as much meaning as possible), the league is lifting that rule and allowing the most important game to be broadcast by NBC no matter how many times the teams involved have already been on prime time.
In 2015, the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers were flexed into the final prime time slot of the regular season, despite that fact that both teams had already clinched spots in the postseason. With Week 17 being nothing but divisional match ups (a move done by the league to increase the importance of the final week of the regular season), both the NFL and NBC are hoping for at least one division to need the final week of the season to decide its champ (and possibly a wild card spot).
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