Blame the weather. Again.
Or blame New England coach Bill Belichick. Again.
I’m kidding. Sort of.
But in a strange way, the horrendous windy weather conditions at Highmark Stadium for the Buffalo Bills’ 14-10 loss to the New England Patriots on ESPN’s Monday Night Football on Dec. 6 in a game Belichick had his offense run the ball 46 times and pass only three times made Bills-Pats III a more attractive prime-time matchup.
That and the expected Bills-Pats rivalry in the future are two reasons the duel between Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Pats rookie quarterback Mac Jones is being played at 8:15 p.m. Saturday on CBS affiliate WIVB-TV.
CBS play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle and analyst Charles Davis, who called Bills-Pats II, Buffalo’s 33-21 road victory on Dec. 26, are back for the rubber match.
Bills fans may dread the possibility of a negative wind chill temperature Saturday in what is expected to be another rough weather day in the stands, but the NFL may view it as a positive viewing experience for people warm in their homes.
“I hope the weather is not quite as crappy,” said Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling before explaining the NFL’s thinking.
“That Saturday night window is important to our fans, important to our network partners and obviously New England and Buffalo just seem like they are heading for another 10 years of rivalry for that division so (we) felt good about putting that game in prime time.
“New England-Buffalo rematch in prime time, obviously a strangely historic game a month ago … New England and Buffalo intertwined all the way through this season, let’s settle it again in the playoffs in prime time.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, North explained the NFL scheduling puzzle that ended up with the Bills-Patriots game on Saturday night and where a potential second Bills playoff game could land the following divisional playoff week.
North explained the puzzle starts backwards with the choice of the Monday game from 12 wild-card playoff teams before scheduling the Sunday and Saturday games.
Monday
North explained the last game of the three-day weekend actually had to be picked first and it had to be between a No. 4 and No. 5 seed in one of the conferences so the teams winning Saturday or Sunday awaiting their next opponent could know as much as they could about who would be their next opponent in the Jan. 22-23 divisional weekend.
North said a Monday game between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds will help the two winners of the games involving the 2-7 and 3-6 seeds on Sunday know what they are doing on divisional weekend “as soon as their wild-card games are over.”
“They will either play each other, or (No.1 seed) Green Bay on Saturday (the 22nd) or they’ll play the winner of the Monday game on Sunday (the 23rd).”
“If you play a 2-7 or 3-6 game on Monday, nobody knows anything in that conference until after the Monday night game,” explained North.
The decision was made to have the No. 4 NFC seed Los Angeles Rams host the No. 5 seed Arizona Cardinals on Monday night.
“It’s obviously a good game,” said North. “We hope. There is some interesting history coming right out of Week 18 where they still were in contention for the division championship.”
Sunday
North explained that the two other NFC wild-card games had to be played this Sunday to avoid giving a winner two potential extra days of rest over the Monday night winner for the Jan. 22-23 playoff weekend.
The resulting Sunday NFC games feature big draws Tampa Bay with Tom Brady and Dallas are available for Sunday.
The game between the No. 2 seed Buccaneers and the No. 7 Philadelphia Eagles is being carried at 1 p.m. on Fox, which suggests the NFL thinks it is the lesser of two attractive games even with Brady’s involvement.
The 4:30 p.m. game on CBS looks to be more attractive because It features two big market draws – No. 6 seed San Francisco and the No. 3 seed Cowboys.
The NFL settled on No. 7 AFC seed Pittsburgh and No. 2 seed Kansas City for NBC’s Sunday Night Football even if some people might consider it a less-attractive matchup than the San Francisco-Dallas game. After all, Kansas City beat the Steelers, 36-10, on Dec. 26.
“Kansas City is a proven ratings draw for the NFL,” said North. “Pittsburgh-K.C. sounds like a football game. They just played a month ago on a big CBS doubleheader window and got 28 million viewers and it wasn’t really close. Plus you have to add in obviously the likelihood that this is (Pittsburgh quarterback) Ben Roethlisberger’s last game. All of that combined puts Pittsburgh-Kansas City, plus Dallas, plus Tampa all on Sunday. That sounds like a pretty good day for our fans.”
Saturday
With only the two AFC playoff games to be scheduled, the game between the No. 3 seed Bills and the No. 6 seed Patriots on CBS apparently is viewed as the bigger prime-time draw for reasons above.
That left the final piece of the puzzle as the No. 5 seed Las Vegas Raiders versus the No. 4 seeded Cincinnati Bengals at 4:30 p.m. Saturday on NBC.
The Divisional Round, Jan. 22-23
The six winners advance with the No. 1 seeds in the NFC (Green Bay) and AFC (Tennessee) to play doubleheaders at 4:30 and 8 p.m. on Jan. 22 and 3 and 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 23. One game from each conference will be played both days.
The Rams-Cardinals Monday night winner will play an NFC opponent on Jan. 23 to give Monday’s winner six days rest.
“The beauty in the AFC is that you are not trapped into anything, whereas on the NFC side you have to play the winner of the Monday night game the following Sunday,” said North.
If the AFC goes according to seeding, the No. 3 seeded Bills would play at the No. 2 seed Kansas City in the divisional round. The Bills would have either seven or eight days between games depending on whether the game would be played on Jan. 22 or 23. Since it is playing this Sunday night, Kansas City would have only six or seven days between games if it beats the Steelers, depending on whether their next game is Jan. 22 or 23.
“AFC championship rematch,” said North of the K.C.-Buffalo possibility. “Sounds like a great Sunday game on divisional weekend. I’ve heard from many, many people that the divisional weekend is their favorite weekend of the NFL.”
Conference Title Weekend
The AFC and NFC title games are on Jan. 30, with the AFC game played at 3 p.m. on CBS and the NFC game at 6:30 p.m. on Fox.
The Super Bowl is carried by NBC on Feb. 13.
“Nobody is ever happy with any decisions we make," North cracked, "but hopefully they are all equally disappointed."
