The NFL’s deadline for choosing whether to flex Week 16’s Thursday night game between the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams has passed, and no change is coming: kickoff from SoFi Stadium will go as scheduled on Dec. 21 at 7:15 p.m. CT. The broadcast will be streamed nationally on Amazon Prime Video.
So feel free to buy tickets if you’re looking to brave the holiday traffic and travel to the West Coast. The Saints and Rams share 5-6 records after New Orleans suffered back-to-back losses with L.A. winning two consecutive games after their bye week, and it’s possible these two teams will be competing for the seventh playoff seed in the NFC by the time Week 16 rolls around.
League ownership voted to allow late-season flexing for Thursday night games this year, and the Saints were one crucial flipped vote to get it passed. Their reward? New Orleans is one of seven teams that will play multiple Thursday games on short weeks this season, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears, Washington Commanders, San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions, and Green Bay Packers. They lost their first Thursday night game to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Let’s see if the Saints can even things out with a win over the Rams later this year.
Will any Thursday night games get flexed this year? It hasn’t happened yet, and this flexing is only allowed in a window from Weeks 13 to 17. On top of that, the NFL must announce any Thursday game scheduling changes 28 days in advance, so that leaves just one matchup with flex-eligibility: Week 17’s game between the New York Jets (4-7) and Cleveland Browns (7-4). We’ll know by Thursday, Nov. 30 whether that game will be played as scheduled, but the absences of starting quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson don’t make it very compelling.
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