Mike Florio ,
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The Broncos have won eight games in a row. The Commanders have lost five in a row. With both teams on a bye, those streaks will next be on the line in prime time.
Via Nicki Jhabvala of TheAthletic.com, the Week 13 Broncos-Commanders game will remain on Sunday Night Football .
The Commanders currently don’t have starting quarterback Jayden Daniels, who suffered a dislocated elbow during Washington’s most recent Sunday night game, in Week 9. If he doesn’t play, it will be an Oregon quarterback reunion game, with Bo Nix facing Marcus Mariota.
It will be the fifth night game, and sixth standalone game, for the Commanders in 2025. So far, they have lost every one — in Week 2 at Green Bay on Thursday night, Week 6 vs. the Bears on Monday night, Week 8 at the Chiefs on Monday night, Week 9 vs. the Seahawks on Sunday night, and Week 11 vs. the Dolphins in Madrid on Sunday morning.
All flex, and non-flex, decisions are made by the NFL. With three Thursday games on Thanksgiving and a Black Friday game, there were fewer available options than usual for the Week 13 Sunday night game. The three most viable possibilities, in theory, were Rams-Panthers, Texans-Colts, and Vikings-Seahawks.
Different rules limit the league’s options, from the CBS/Fox ability to protect certain games to the requirement that one of every team’s home-and-home division rivalries land on a Sunday afternoon. With the Colts and Texans playing again in Week 18, moving their first meeting to Sunday night would presumably exclude the rematch from sliding to Saturday night or Sunday night.
There’s a third rail lurking, which I’m not currently interested in jumping on with both feet, given that Broncos-Commanders is an NBC game. That said, the league says every May that teams with few night games on the original schedule will have the ability to play their way into prime time.
Which means that teams with a heavy prime-time slate have the ability to play their way out of prime time.
If any team has done that this year, it’s the Washington Commanders.
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