Each year in Week 17 the NFL flexes its best, most important game to Sunday night. But that won't happen this year. All the games will be played at 1 p.m. Eastern and 4 p.m. Eastern. There are a couple of reasons for this.
One is no doubt that it's New Year's Eve. That's not in and of itself a deal-breaker. They've played NFL games on New Year's Eve night plenty of times in the past. I remember a Packers-Bears game played then during the Favre era, where many thought he might retire after it -- 2005 or 2006, I guess.
But that's part of it, and the other part is that the league isn't guaranteed to have one meaningful game no matter what it does.
Panthers-Falcons seems like the obvious choice. That could be a game that determines if the Panthers or Saints wins the NFC South, and if the Falcons or Seahawks make it into the playoffs.
But it's also very possible it will be meaningless. Depending on the outcome of Saints-Bucs, the NFC South might already have been clinched. And depending on the outcome of Seahawks-Cardinals, that last wildcard spot might already have been decided. The Falcons and Panthers, knowing they're playing a game the following week (maybe even against each other?) would surely hold out starters, and we'd all get to see a game with backups squaring off. Nobody is going to plan their New Year's Eve around that.
Story with schedule info can be seen at this link.
(A Day of Football, wrapping up all the weekend's game, will be published Tuesday morning.)
--Andy Richardson