Tag: 2024 Week 14

Why anyone predicting Cowboys-Bengals to be flexed from MNF is probably wrong

Two important factors may be in play that keeps the NFL from saving a prime-time audience from watching two floundering franchises. Blame byes and blame Bart.

The Dallas Cowboys are “ungood”. The Cincinnati Bengals are more competitive, but still “ungood”. It makes zero sense to keep what was anticipated to be a high-profile matchup between playoff contenders, back when the schedule was being defined in the spring, as the Monday Night Football matchup for Week 14.

The NFL has until next Tuesday, November 26, to move this game, but they won’t. Joe Burrow playing at an MVP level is not enough reason to keep this game in its slot. The fact that more than half the football universe despises the Cowboys and loves to see them flail embarrassingly isn’t enough reason either. The teams are a combined 6-15 entering this weekend and in any other scenario, their miserable play would send them up to the late-afternoon Sunday slot at worst, potentially deserving of a noon kickoff.

No, the only thing saving this game is Bart. Bart Simpson, that is.

On Monday, ESPN and Disney released the latest promo for their annual Funday broadcast, a simulcast where the game will be shown in Simpsons-themed animation to try and bring the NFL to a younger audience.

And while the promo has swapped out Prescott for Cooper Rush, it realistically seems the lift would be much too heavy for an upheaval of their months of preparations for this particular matchup.

NFL flex rules allow Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football (starting in Week 12) to swap out a bad matchup for a better one. FOX and CBS Sports are allowed to protect one game each week, but NBC and ESPN have the right to snatch any other game.

Perhaps the worst thing about it is, if the alt-cast really is preventing the league from flexing the game out, it’s not even a viable data point for where the bar is to flex out a Cowboys game. It’s a case where both teams could have poor records and be out of playoff contention, which has rarely been the case for past bad Cowboys games, but unlike with the one Cowboys game that did get flexed out, there shouldn’t be a risk that both teams will be eliminated from the playoffs entirely by the time the game kicks off, so there’s no way of knowing whether that situation would be enough for a flex in the future. We may never know if the only reason Bengals-Cowboys shows up on ESPN’s air in two and a half weeks is for the sake of an alt-cast that should get a fraction of the game’s audience. – Morgan Wick

Week 14 was weird to begin with, the NFL scheduling a whopping six teams with byes, making the pool of potential matchups difficult to begin with. Baltimore, Washington, Houston and Denver are all currently above .500 but taking that week off.

Green Bay and Detroit is on Thursday Night Football and the Chiefs-Chargers tilt is on SNF already. Falcons-Vikings, 49ers-Bears, and Bills-Rams are the only other intriguing matchups in Week 14 and at least two of those would be protected.

So aside from all of the man hours that would be thrown in the toilet on the pre-production side, none of those games would likely bring in enough of an audience to justify the change.

So Bengals-Cowboys is likely to remain on Monday Night Football in Week 14.

Fans should check back in two weeks from now to see about the Cowboys-Buccaneers Week 16 tilt currently scheduled for SNF, though.