When most fans think of Sunday Night Football, they visualize the best game of a given week on the NFL schedule. That idea has certainly been the case most of the time this season, including in Week 7, where the Philadelphia Eagles outlasted the Miami Dolphins 31-17 in a matchup of two 5-1 teams with explosive offenses.
The NFL's desire to balance out the schedules for all their broadcast partners has led to a more equitable distribution of big games, which is good for the networks, but Sunday night has taken a bit of a quality hit with some questionable games popping up every now and then. Week 8 certainly falls into that category.
Who is playing on Sunday Night Football in Week 8?
The Sunday night game is, quite frankly, a bad one between the 2-5 Chicago Bears and 2-4 Los Angeles Chargers. The matchup, which was questionable on paper when the schedule was released in May, has gotten worse since then thanks to a rough start from the Chargers and a thumb injury to Bears' starting quarterback Justin Fields.
Chicago managed to pick up a win without Fields on Sunday, beating up the Las Vegas Raiders 30-12 in a game where the Raiders were also without their starting quarterback. Undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent played well in his first NFL start, completing 21-of-29 passes for 162 yards and a touchdown, while the Bears also saw veteran running back D'Onta Foreman contribute three touchdowns in the win.
The Chargers are stumbling entering this one, dropping their second straight game after falling on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs 31-17. The big problem for Los Angeles was that their defense didn't show up to play, allowing Patrick Mahomes to shred them to the tune of 424 yards passing and four touchdowns.
Despite the fact that flex scheduling was available, the NFL opted not to switch out this game for a more competitive matchup, foregoing options such as Jaguars-Steelers and Browns-Seahawks (which were likely the best available games assuming CBS and FOX protected Bengals-49ers and Cowboys-Rams respectively) in the process. It wouldn't be shocking to see this matchup be one of the lowest-rated Sunday night games this season.