Bengals likely to luck out from an unfortunate fate this season
The NFL is attempting to make late-season Thursday Night Football games better at the expense of, well, the teams playing in them. From Weeks 13-17, up to two matchups can now be flexed into the Thursday night time slot, and teams will be notified a month in advance. No, it's not a lot of time […]
The NFL is attempting to make late-season Thursday Night Football games better at the expense of, well, the teams playing in them.
From Weeks 13-17, up to two matchups can now be flexed into the Thursday night time slot, and teams will be notified a month in advance. No, it's not a lot of time at all, but it's what was agreed upon.
Luckily for the Cincinnati Bengals, this is a fate they may not be subjected to in 2023.
Like most teams, the Bengals have five games scheduled between Weeks 13 and 17. They are as follows:
- Week 13: @ Jacksonville Jaguars
- Week 14: vs. Indianapolis Colts
- Week 15: vs. Minnesota Vikings
- Week 16: @ Pittsburgh Steelers
- Week 17: @ Kansas City Chiefs
What's important to note are the three road games; all three are out of the conversation. For starters, one stipulation for the new flex rules states that no team is permitted to play two Thursday night games on the road, and the Bengals are already on the road for their originally scheduled TNF matchup against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 11.
Even if this stipulation didn't exist, it still wouldn't be likely that any of those three would be moved. The Bengals are essentially playing in primetime in each game. The Jacksonville game is on Monday Night Football, and the Pittsburgh and Kansas City games are in the late afternoon slot for CBS.
The AFC Championship rematch between the Bengals and Chiefs was the first game announced for the Bengals' schedule. The league will want to keep it on New Year’s Eve anyways should both teams be as good as expected.
This leaves just two possible games for the Bengals to be flexed into Thursday night. The Colts and Vikings will each travel to Paycor Stadium in December for weekend matchups.
It's still just May, but is anyone expecting the Colts to be in contention for the playoffs with just a month remaining in the season? Anthony Richardson will be an exciting story as he develops under first-year head coach Shane Steichen, but the Colts' projected win total sits at just 6.5. They aren't likely to hit that in the first 12 weeks.
The Vikings are much more likely to be in the playoff race at that point. A Ja'Marr Chase vs. Justin Jefferson matchup would have plenty of people tuning in as both teams will look to capture back-to-back division titles, but that leaves us with just one out of five games we can somewhat predict could be given to Amazon Prime Video for Thursday night. And it doesn't even feature two teams from the same conference.
Those are some pretty good odds to avoid a double Thursday night conundrum.
