The NFL has finalized its schedule for Week 17, "eliminating the Sunday night game so as to ensure that all matchups with playoff implications that affect one another will be played at the same time," according to Jenna Laine of ESPN.com. The last time the regular season "didn't end with a night game, either on Sunday or Monday," was in '77 -- the last year with a 14-game schedule. The last time the final NFL Sunday fell on New Year's Eve was '06 (ESPN.com, 12/24). In DC, Jeremy Gottlieb writes something left unsaid is the fact that a game played at night on New Year’s Eve "probably won’t draw well from a television ratings perspective." But it is "tough to argue" that flexing both NFC South games to the 4:25pm ET window "won’t make for a compelling few hours." Three AFC games with potential ramifications -- Bengals-Ravens, Bills-Dolphins and Jaguars-Titans -- were also "moved to that late time slot," joining Chargers-Raiders, which could send the Chargers to the playoffs (WASHINGTON POST, 12/26).
PREVENTING REPEAT OFFENDERS: CBSSPORTS.com's Will Brinson noted the NFL "does not want a situation" similar to what unfolded with Jets-Bengals in '10. Both teams "believed they might need a win to either clinch the playoffs or clinch a division title." But the Bengals actually "clinched the division title before the game and were locked into their seed." The Jets "desperately needed to win in order to make the playoffs." Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, "coaching against his old buddy Rex Ryan, sat all his players, which allowed the Jets to get into the postseason." Also, the NFL "does not like the optics of bad ratings, and how do you think a questionable matchup on Sunday night/New Year's Eve would rate?" Brinson: "Horrifically. If the game was bad, the ratings would be historically terrible." The NFL "cannot have the Sunday night game damage the competitive balance of the earlier games or vice versa." But this season is different, because there is "not a game that applies, and as such, the NFL has decided to bail on scheduling a Sunday night game" (CBSSPORTS.com, 12/25). SI.com's Jacob Feldman notes facing the potential of a "meaningless regular-season finale and/or a New Year's Eve ratings clunker, the NFL instead decided to nix the Sunday night game altogether" (SI.com, 12/26).
