Put down the pitchforks and torches. They won’t do any good.
We surmised last week, in an item about the potential flexing of upcoming Cowboys games out of key windows, the Week 14 Monday night game between the Bengals and Cowboys won’t be going anywhere, thanks to Homer. And Bart. And Marge. And Lisa. And Maggie. And the rest of the people who live there, in Springfield.
As noted by Jay Morrison of SI.com, the game isn’t eligible to be moved because of the artwork, voiceovers, and other work that has already been done for the alternate broadcast.
Even without the Simpsons extravaganza, the bar is very high for a flex. Even higher for a Cowboys game.
Indeed, the Bengals-Cowboys game was picked due to the extremely high unlikelihood that it would have been flexed, in any event.
So with the Bengals 4-7 (and possibly 4-8 at kickoff) and the Cowboys at 3-6 (and possibly 4-8 or 3-9 at kickoff), it will still be Bengals-Cowboys three weeks from tonight.
Even with the expanded ability to flex, with Monday night and Thursday night joining Sunday night as of last year, the increased number of standalone windows — and the proliferation of bad teams in 2024 — will make it hard to fill up the one-game-only windows with good games.
As recently noted, Week 17 has EIGHT standalone windows, along with the 4:25 p.m. ET game on Fox.
The solution to that issue isn’t more games. It’s more teams. And once the league figures this out, get ready for the emergence of reports that the league is considering expansion to 34 teams. Or 36. Or 38. Or 40.
