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A better way to deal with Christmas Eve Mondays in the future


pf9

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This year, the NFL is staging a Christmas Eve night game between two western teams.

For future years, I have a better solution.

Swap the ESPN game onto late Sunday afternoon (with a 5 PM ET kick-off time) as a lead-in to the NBC SNF game, and any two teams can play in it. Then instead of a MNF game on Christmas Eve, the normal Sunday afternoon slate is played on Monday afternoon instead, similar to when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday.

This would keep NBC from being able to swap out its week 16 game for another, but I feel it is a good way to avoid Christmas eve night (which can be done fairly easily in other years, like when it falls on a Thursday, move the TNF game to Christmas Friday night instead)

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I don't see this happening, there's no way ESPN would air an MNF game before prime time.  I see what happened in 2012 with the Falcons @ Lions as the most realistic approach to this situation.  Make the MNF game on Saturday night instead as a special edition, just like they did that year

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One problem with that. Saturdays are the exclusive domain of the Thursday Night Football package now.

The only reason they did that in 2012 was the TNF package had surrendered Saturdays, but they have since reclaimed them.

Yeah I know SNF aired a game on Saturday last year, but that was because that week the TNF package could move one of its Saturday games to Monday on Christmas. When Monday is Xmas Eve it's a little different.

Plus with the early Sunday afternoon timeslot on the 23rd opened, ESPN2 (most likely so that ESPN could air its MNF prelude programming) could air a college bowl game (perhaps one of the bigger non-CFP bowls) as something of a lead-in to the transplanted MNF game, keeping football fans glued to the TV all day

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5 hours ago, pf9 said:

This year, the NFL is staging a Christmas Eve night game between two western teams.

For future years, I have a better solution.

Swap the ESPN game onto late Sunday afternoon (with a 5 PM ET kick-off time) as a lead-in to the NBC SNF game, and any two teams can play in it. Then instead of a MNF game on Christmas Eve, the normal Sunday afternoon slate is played on Monday afternoon instead, similar to when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday.

This would keep NBC from being able to swap out its week 16 game for another, but I feel it is a good way to avoid Christmas eve night (which can be done fairly easily in other years, like when it falls on a Thursday, move the TNF game to Christmas Friday night instead)

Why would they need to avoid Christmas Eve?

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