Jets-Patriots Flexed Out of Sunday Night Football

No surprise here. The November 27 contest between the New York Jets and New England Patriots has been flexed out of the Sunday Night Football schedule in favor of a match-up of AFC West rivals, the Broncos and Chiefs.

With the Jets at 3-7, and destined to basically tank the rest of the season to find out who will stay and who will go, there was no room for NBC or the NFL to leave such a dead match-up in primetime. Everyone expects the Patriots to plaster the Jets in this game, and with the league's primetime TV ratings already suffering, this was a no-brainer.

It is slightly surprising that Broncos-Chiefs was left available to NBC. Usually, CBS and FOX have the ability to flag certain games they would want to keep on their air. A battle between the 7-2 Chiefs and 7-3 Broncos would have likely sufficed as a game CBS would want to keep.

The other possible match-ups to get flexed were the Cardinals-Falcons game or the Panthers-Raiders game. Either match-up would have been good primetime television.

This means that NBC will broadcast both Broncos-Chiefs games, with the other match-up coming on December 25, Christmas night.

The Jets-Patriots game will now be broadcast on CBS at 4:25 p.m. on November 27, thus avoiding a local broadcast clash with the Giants, who play in Cleveland at 1 p.m.