Tonight’s Vikings-Eagles game is brought to you by the triad, trinity and confluence of the NFL, the current NFL television contract, and Mother Nature. Well, it’s a shame common sense didn’t have a complete contribution... If common sense did, then perhaps we wouldn’t be talking about a Tuesday night game on NBC, and perhaps we would still be discussing how NBC and FOX Sports executives demonstrated maximum cooperation and creativity while adjusting game times and network coverage on the fly in the face of a major nor’easter snowstorm that dumped 20-30 inches over most of the Philadelphia to New York City corridor.
Were the NFL and the city of Philadelphia smart for not wanting more than 70,000 Eagles fans, many likely inebriated, potentially stranded at Lincoln Financial Field around 11:00pm Sunday night while a winter storm rendered roads impassable for motor vehicles? Yes, they were. Given the magnitude of the storm and weather forecasts, the safety of that many football fans needed to be considered relative to kickoff. However, postponing the game until tonight was not necessarily the best collective decision made, and possibly forcing the Eagles to play three games over the next twelve days (okay, so these will be the twelve post-nights of x-mas), albeit a big issue, wasn’t even the top issue.
Let’s revisit the timeline of events relative to how the decision for tonight’s game came to be. In case you forgot, December is Flex Scheduling time for the NFL, NBC, CBS, and FOX. The NFL goes to Flex Scheduling in order to spare NBC from presenting too may unattractive games during their primetime Sunday slot. In the original NFL schedule, Sunday night’s regular season finale was supposed to provide viewers the San Diego Chargers at the Cincinnati Bengals, two teams who made last year’s AFC playoffs but were both unlikely to make this year’s postseason field due to poor starts. The 8-6 Chargers started their customary 2-5, and still trailed the Kansas City Chiefs (9-5) by one game despite winning six of their past seven games. Thanks to a ten-game losing streak, the Bengals were 3-11. The only matchup feared worse than Chargers-Bengals could’ve been Lions-Dolphins, for also-ran’s sake.
Both NBC and the NFL feared an uncompetitive or “dog” game, and switched Chargers-Bengals with Vikings-Eagles, despite the 5-9 Vikings playing out the string against 10-4 Eagles. Everyone was right about an uncompetitive game, but the teams needed to be reversed; the Bengals won 34-20, and the game wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
Speaking of dogs...
On the other hand, the Eagles were fresh off their wild 38-31 comeback victory over the New York Giants at the Meadowlands, and Michael Vick games produce BIG television ratings compared to any other team the past 10 weeks of the season, including two weeks ago when the Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys 30-27, in Texas. Tonight’s game will be the Eagles’ SIXTH time on primetime television most in the NFL, the maximum permitted. Not only do we get another Michael Vick doggie-gate story rehashed. While the Vikings are 5-9, they are considered a better draw and offer more fight than some 3-11 team, right? Oh... Those back-to-back snow-afflicted home losses to the Giants and Bears by a combined 61-17? Not to worry... The Vikings are still a much more entertaining story for television than the Bengals, albeit as a Greek tragedy or Shakespearian comedy.
Although not necessarily part of the original thought process for Sunday night, tonight now adds a miniscule but potential bonus: the NFL unwittingly gave Brett Favre, history’s all-time Hamlet, two extra days to recover from a concussion (assuming he passes a neurological test today... To cognate, or not to cognate. That is his question!) and perhaps add to the traveling circus of his presumed final season with another possible start at QB, perhaps his very last on primetime television.
So, everyone’s happy, right? Well, um... No!
Editorial note: For the record, I like a Tuesday night NFL game... Anything to bump The Biggest Loser off NBC’s primetime schedule is fine by me! If I want to see fat people work up a sweat on television, they should be wearing shoulder pads and helmets.
There are Eagles fans, notably former Philadelphia mayor and current Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, upset that the Eagles are playing a game Tuesday night, perhaps throwing personal weekday plans into chaos, and let’s not forget the possibility looming for the Eagles playing three games within twelve days, if the Eagles fail to clinch a first-round playoff bye. Never mind the Eagles have clinched the NFC Eastern division crown without having to play, thanks to the Giants inspiring 45-17 loss in Green Bay to the Packers (more on this later).
Memo to the governor:
Eddie, bubella, could you kinda tone down the rhetoric about comparing American wusses to Chinese ass-kickers? Oh, and by the way, even I, a former chemistry and physics professor, can’t walk and do calculus at the same time (unless it’s a simple derivative or integral)!
There are football purists and commentators on several radio stations and sports television networks who think postponing a professional football game for 48 hours because of snow is ridiculous. Football in December is meant to be played in snow (ask the Vikings, who lost use of their domed stadium for the past two weeks), and if NBC and the NFL really cared about fan and vehicle safety after a game, they would’ve scheduled Lions-Dolphins from Miami, and banned alcohol sales. More than one commentator thought the NFL was incredulous for this level of concern.
Is anyone mentally fast-forwarding to February 2014 and Super Bowl XLVIII at the Meadowlands?
The real outrage should be directed at the NFL for not simply moving the Vikings-Eagles game back to 1:00pm EST Sunday, the original slot, and shifting one of the 4:00pm games to 8:30pm Sunday night, and trading TV announcer teams or swapping network coverage. Or, the NFL could’ve gotten away with switching the Vikings-Eagles game to 4:00pm while still swapping one of the 4:00pm games to 8:30pm.
The storm’s full brunt didn’t really hit Philadelphia until after 6:00pm, the impact was less than forecasted, and nowhere close to what the New York City area got. Local Eagles fans could’ve easily attended a 1:00pm game and gotten home safely during a 4:00-6:00pm window, or they could’ve attended a 4:00pm game and still gotten home safely during a 7:00-9:00pm window. Either way would’ve been more preferable than an 11:00pm-1:00am window, which will still be the case tonight. Although snowfall and unplowed roads won’t be an issue, fans still have to worry about black ice on roads after melted snow refreezes several hours after sunset.
The NFL “couldn’t” shift the Vikings-Eagles game to Monday, because ESPN got in a tizzy about having another primetime game opposite it, like the Giants-Vikings game two weeks ago. Why? Unlike Giants-Vikings, which was a regional FOX broadcast for the New York and Minnesota television markets, Vikings-Eagles was slotted to be a nationally broadcasted game. Because NBC “had” to preserve its primetime slot for week 16, the league decided to shift Vikings-Eagles to Tuesday night.
For all who thought the NFL, NBC and ESPN were approaching this situation from purely altruistic concerns... Ha! It all boiled down to MONEY and television ratings. The fans wanted the game on Sunday. The players wanted the game on Sunday. League and network executives wanted what was best for the bottom line. Nationalistic rhetoric aside, Governor Rendell argued that the NFL and NBC should have left the final decision to the Eagles and their local fans. The Vikings and Eagles could’ve played their game in an almost empty stadium, advising their fans to either take extreme caution driving to the stadium or simply stay home and watch it on television. The game was already sold out, so there was never a concern about a local television blackout.
It’s one thing to sit and criticize. It’s another to offer a plausible solution for future reference.
I happened to be in Philadelphia this past weekend, and was made aware of the pending storm around 7:00pm Saturday evening. By that hour, the changed weather news was well-known and continuously broadcasted since early Saturday afternoon. Whether the new storm projections were 100 percent accurate or not, decision-makers relative to the Vikings-Eagles game knew of a potential issue at least 30 hours prior to kickoff.
If I knew 30 hours ahead that a major storm could create travel chaos to and from a stadium, I would’ve immediately contacted the Vikings and Eagles organizations, as well as executives at NBC and FOX Sports, and ordered the game kickoff to be 1:00pm EST as a FOX regional game. I then would order FOX to pick one of its 1:00pm or 4:00pm games, where winter weather would not be an issue, and shift it to 8:30pm.
Why FOX Sports and not CBS? Because the Vikings are an NFC team, and FOX has exclusive rights to all Sunday afternoon games where NFC teams are the visitor, one would need to do an equivalent switch in terms of broadcast announcer teams.
FOX was broadcasting the following games on Sunday afternoon:
1:00pm EST: San Francisco 49ers at St. Louis Rams, Detroit Lions at Miami Dolphins, and Washington Redskins at Jacksonville Jaguars
4:00pm EST: Seattle Seahawks at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and New York Giants at Green Bay Packers
Four of the five games had playoff implications, so none of these games would’ve been totally unattractive to viewers. Considering the Giants-Packers game was supposed to be FOX’s marquee matchup (little did anyone expect a 45-17 blowout), FOX could’ve swapped either 49ers-Rams or Redskins-Jaguars with NBC. Given NBC has the Rams at Seattle for next Sunday’s primetime finale, 49ers-Rams might’ve provided football fans a nice introduction to the Rams, 7-8 this year after a combined 6-42 for the 2007-2009 seasons.
Now that NBC, FOX, the Vikings, Eagles, 49ers and Rams all know about switched kickoff times, I would’ve offered the following options to NBC and FOX executives:
1. The NBC Sunday night broadcast team covers Vikings-Eagles for FOX, and the FOX team covers 49ers-Rams for NBC. Both networks already have their own equipment, personnel and announcing teams in place. Only a switch in network satellite feeds is needed.
2. NBC and FOX leave their equipment in place and switch personnel and announcers. In other words, the NBC folks fly Saturday evening from Philadelphia to St. Louis, and the FOX folks fly Saturday evening from St. Louis to Philadelphia. FOX people can use NBC equipment, and NBC people can use FOX equipment.
3. Only swap announcer teams between NBC and FOX, requiring the fewest number of people to transport between St. Louis and Philadelphia on short notice.
In an ideal world, and egos aside, I would hope NBC and FOX chose option number one, the least complicated option. If the NFL negotiates its television network contracts collectively with all of its affiliated networks (NBC, CBS, FOX, ESPN and NFLN), then the most cooperative and creative solution would’ve been for NBC and FOX to help each other out under unusual circumstances. Perhaps Vikings-Eagles and 49ers-Rams both turn out to be three hours of uninspiring football, but imagine the endless chatter among football fans and sports commentators about the day Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth announced a game for FOX, and Kenny Albert, Moose Johnston and Tony Siragusa announced a game for NBC.
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