When the Sunday Night Football on NBC schedule was released for the 2018 regular season, there was the hope that the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks would both be in playoff contention on December 2nd, with “Richard Sherman returns to Seattle” as the biggest headliner. The 49ers are 2-8 and the 4-5 Seahawks’ playoff hopes could be just about gone if they lose to the Green Bay Packers on Thursday, sooooooooo... the NFL needed to do something about it.
They had a bit of a problem with CBS “protecting” Los Angeles Chargers at Pittsburgh Steelers and FOX “protecting” Minnesota Vikings at New England Patriots, theoretically preventing those games from being flexed to Sunday Night Football.