Another day, another NFL schedule shift. Ho hum.
On Thursday, the league announced that Week 7’s Bucs-Raiders game, originally scheduled for Sunday Night Football on NBC, would now air at 4 PM on Fox.
Fox’s originally scheduled 4 PM game, Seahawks-Cardinals, would be moved to Sunday Night Football. The league has said this schedule shift was made “out of an abundance of caution”
.@NFL Week 7 Schedule Changes: https://t.co/xe1PkCk2pW pic.twitter.com/aDK1agT30i
— NFL345 (@NFL345) October 22, 2020
On Wednesday, the Raiders sent their entire starting offensive line home due to close contact with Trent Brown, who is on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. Those linemen are expected to be placed on the Reserve/COVID-19 list on Thursday,
We currently have no idea what the distribution for Fox’s singleheader window on Sunday will look like after the move, but given that the network has a singleheader and this is the lone late game for Fox, it’s unlikely to affect the overall map all that much. Getting another Bucs game is a boon for Fox, but losing the Raiders matchup and replacing it with Seahawks-Cardinals is a net loss for NBC.
The big winners are the Tampa Bay and Los Angeles markets, though. Rays and Dodgers fans now won’t be torn between watching Game 5 of the World Series or Sunday Night Football (featuring one of Tampa Bay’s other teams and a team that built up a strong fanbase in LA from its years in Southern California).
