NFL announces Week 15 & Week 16 Schedule Changes

By Kevin Kelley -

Two NFL games on the 2014 schedule for Week 15 (Dec. 14) have been moved in accordance with the league’s flexible scheduling rules. In addition, the leagues finalized the kickoff time and television for the doubleheader on Saturday, Dec. 20.

The Cincinnati at Cleveland matchup on Dec. 14 (Week 15), which was originally scheduled to be televised by CBS, will now be televised on FOX. Kickoff time remains at 1pm ET.

The Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions game on Dec. 14 will now be televised by FOX at 4:25pm ET. The game was originally scheduled for a 1pm ET kickoff.

Kickoff times have also been set for the Week 16 doubleheader on Saturday, Dec. 20. Philadelphia at Washington will be played at 4:30pm ET on NFL Network, followed by San Diego at San Francisco at 8:25pm ET on CBS.

The NFL will announce any further flexing to the Week 16 schedule at a later date.

Here is more on flex scheduling:

The NFL uses “flexible scheduling” to ensure quality matchups in all NFL Sunday time slots and to give teams a chance to play their way onto prime-time and into the late-afternoon 4:25 p.m. ET time slot on CBS or FOX.

For the first time, flexible scheduling may be applied in Weeks 5-10. During that period, flexible scheduling can be used in no more than two weeks by shifting a Sunday afternoon game into primetime and moving the Sunday night game to an afternoon start time.

Also, for the first time, a select number of games are being “cross-flexed,” moving between CBS and FOX to bring potentially under-distributed games to wider audiences.

The NFL will continue to use flexible scheduling on Sundays in Weeks 11-17. For each flexible scheduling week with the exception of Week 17, the NFL announces the start times of games on Sundays no later than 12 days prior to that weekend. To ensure a Sunday night game and doubleheader games with playoff implications in Week 17, flexible scheduling decisions for that Sunday can be made on six days notice.

Back in 2006, the NFL implemented flexible scheduling to ensure quality match-ups. Sunday afternoon games are eligible to be moved to Sunday Night Football, with the night game being moved to the afternoon.

2014 NFL schedules

Comments (6)

Odd that they leave Denver/SD on in the “regional” 4:05 slot and MIN/DET is the one that gets flexed.

True that after Thanksgiving Night, Niners/Hawks doesn’t justify a 100% national audience anymore, but I’m not sure the appeal of the 6-7/5-8 Vikings here unless there’s a fix to have Adrian Peterson return.

They cant move Denver-SanDiego to 1pm. and NBC has Dallas-Philly, so what else can they going to do with it? There’s a chance CBS may have protected it from flex scheduling as well.

I was clinging to a hope that sports could be the one thing that Americans could enjoy and come together around,but now after seeing the black players with their hands up display,I guess I’ll give that hope up also.I thought that Muslims nor communists could bring down national sports because there were no race issues making the sporting agenda,just fan and player enjoyment.