The NFL season is winding down as we finish up Week 17 today, with teams making one final push to improve seeding or make the postseason. Some division races, seeding, and the final Wild Card spots will come down to how Week 18 plays out.
You might notice, however, that although each team has an opponent for Week 18, there are no times assigned to the games.
When Will Week 18 Times Be Announced?
The NFL stopped scheduling times and days for Week 18 when the 2021 schedule was released to allow for flexibility. The goal is to try to schedule teams competing for the same playoff spot at the same time and put the most important games in the key television windows to maximize ratings.
The times will be announced at some point today, with the NFL crafting the schedule to highlight the most important games. It will be released during or after tonight’s Sunday Night Football game between the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings.
When NBC started broadcasting games on Sunday nights in 2006, the NFL added flexed scheduling for the last part of the season. The league eventually stopped scheduling a Sunday night game for the last week of the season.
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The final Sunday night game of the season would usually be decided after most games were played in the previous week. The game involved at least one team that had a chance to make the playoffs with a win or a matchup that would decide a division title.
In 2017, however, the league decided not to have a game played on the last Sunday night of the season for that season only. NFL senior vice president of broadcasting Howard Katz said at the time, “This ensures that we do not have a matchup on Sunday Night Football on New Year’s Eve that, because of earlier results, has no playoff implications for one or both of the competing teams.”
How Is the Week 18 Schedule Different?
There are a number of changes to the usual NFL schedule in Week 18. The major changes are that no games will be played on Thursday and Monday nights.
Instead, on Saturday, ESPN will have a doubleheader with games at 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET.
The other big change is that both CBS and FOX will have doubleheaders next week, with the late-afternoon games starting at the usual 4:25 p.m. ET. This will allow fans to see seven of the 16 games played next week.
The NFL will likely release the Wild Card Weekend schedule at some point during next week’s Sunday night game.
Want to predict the rest of the 2023 season with our FREE NFL Playoff Predictor? Looking for the most up-to-date NFL standings? What about a breakdown of team depth charts or the NFL schedule? Pro Football Network has you covered with that and more!
