Someone has to beat NFC East, and it looks like the NFL wants us all to find out together who is going to take home the division title. For Week 17, the game between Washington and Philadelphia was postponed until Sunday night.
The last week of the NFL season is almost always one of the craziest weeks of the year, and it usually happens for two reasons: on the one hand, it is the only week of the regular season where all teams play on the same day; and two, is the week when the race for the playoff final points (and final seeds) will finally come to an end.
To make things fair during the last week of the season, the NFL waits as long as possible before announcing the start times of Week 17, and those times were finally announced on Sunday night, with NFC East as the headline of the game.
Based on the new start times for Sunday, it looks like we’re going to get a wild ending to the NFL season.
For Sunday night’s game, the NFL wants at least one team in a life-and-death situation and that will happen with Washington. No matter what happens on Sunday, Washington will win the NFC East title with a victory, but if the football team loses, the division championship will go to the winner of the Cowboys-Giants game. Putting NFC East in prime time is the perfect and crazy way to end this perfectly crazy season.
The 13:00 ET slot was awarded mainly to AFC teams. Going into Week 17, there are five teams – Titans, Colts, Browns, Dolphins and Ravens – fighting for four spots. The Browns, Dolphins and Ravens will all start at 1 pm Eastern time.
After the first games, 4:25 pm ET will give us the battle for the final two playoff spots on the NFC. On that side of things, the Rams, Cardinals and Bears will fight for the remaining two places as a wild card. The best seed in the NFC will also be up for grabs during the 4:25 pm ET window.
In recent years, you could have had a scenario where the Bears started at 1 pm ET and the Rams-Cardinals game started at 4:25 pm ET. In that case, if Bears started first and lost, Rams could have simply rested their starters in the later game, as they would have guaranteed a playoff spot with Chicago’s early defeat. The NFL wants to avoid situations like this, which is why the league waits so long to announce the start times.
AFC South will also be in contention at 4:25 pm ET, with the Colts (vs. Jacksonville) and Titans (in Houston) scheduled to start in the final window.
Here’s a look at the entire schedule for the start of week 17. For an updated view of the playoff image, click here.
13h east time
Dolphins on beads (CBS)
Ravens at Bengals (CBS)
Steelers at Browns (CBS)
Jets on Patriots (CBS)
Vikings in Lions (Fox)
Cowboys at Giants (Fox)
Falcons in Buccaneers (Fox)
4:25 pm eastern time
Saints in the Panthers (Fox)
Packers at Bears (Fox)
Raiders at Broncos (CBS)
Chargers at Chiefs (Fox)
Cardinals at Rams (CBS)
Seahawks at 49ers (Fox)
Titans at Texans (CBS)
Jaguars at Colts (CBS)
8:20 pm Eastern Time
Washington in Philadelphia (NBC)