Mike McCarthy loves schedules. He loves knowing what’s going to happen when, down to the minute if he’s able to pinpoint it.
But right now, the coach’s entire first week of 2023 is up in the air, and he’s even unsure if his team will have six days or seven days of prep before their regular-season finale versus the Commanders.
“The last communication I was given was that we’ll probably know Sunday night. I don’t know whether we play Saturday or Sunday,” McCarthy told reporters Friday, the day after a 27-13 win over the Titans to keep their division-title hopes mathematically alive. “I think you know me well enough; I have two schedules sitting here right on my desk as far a six-day or a seven-day [version] going into the Washington game. Hopefully, we’ll get that information by Sunday night.”
But not even that is guaranteed.
When the NFL released the season slate back in May, Week 18 was listed as a question mark for all 32 teams. Two games will be played on Saturday- at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:15 p.m. ET. Everyone else plays on Sunday- either in one of the two normal afternoon timeslots, or in the Sunday Night Football regular-season finale at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
The league, of course, wants to ensure that the matchups with the biggest playoff implications get the most TV exposure.
If the Eagles beat the Saints in Week 17, the Cowboys are locked in to the NFC’s No. 5 seed, and their Week 18 trip to FedEx Field becomes just a formality, at least to Dallas. The Commanders could still have a wild-card spot to play for (assuming they beat Cleveland in Week 17), but it’s hard to imagine that alone would make it one of the premier contests of the weekend, especially since the Cowboys would likely hold most of their star players out.
Joe Ferreira, a former league employee who has worked on scheduling and playoff scenarios since the 1990s, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that the NFL prefers to announce the final week’s schedule during the second half of the Sunday night broadcast. But this year, since playoff scenarios may change with the Monday night result, the league may announce Week 18’s two Saturday games and Sunday’s primetime matchup first, and wait until Monday Night Football to divvy up Sunday’s early- and late-afternoon slates.
“That way, at least fans know if they’re going to a game on Sunday afternoon vs. Sunday night vs. Saturday,” Ferreira told the paper.
It’s believed that if the Eagles lose to the Saints in Week 17, the NFL would schedule Week 18’s Cowboys-Commanders and Giants-Eagles games to be played simultaneously on Sunday afternoon.
For now, McCarthy says his coaching staff will have their prep work for Washington finished by Monday, when the players return to the facility after their long weekend off.
He hopes to also know by then which of the two schedules on his desk he’ll be using.
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