Since Doug Pederson made his controversial decision Sunday night, I've heard people saying that the NFL should not have chosen this game for Sunday night, and furthermore some even saying that they "knew" this was going to happen. Finally, in the most ridiculous claim yet, I've seen some saying that if the NFC East games were played simultaneously, the Eagles would not have done this.
So I'll break down this article into many parts, starting off with taking a look at all the other 15 games that were played on Sunday, and whether or not they could have been chosen for Sunday Night Football instead of WFT@PHI. Secondly, I'll take a look back at Week 16, and what potentially could have gone differently in Week 16 to allow the NFL to schedule Week 17 differently. Thirdly, I'll talk about the NFL's Week 17 SNF decision-making process in past years, and how I believe it will change moving forward. Finally, I'll discuss Pederson's actual decision itself, which I actually feel is the least relevant part of this but just got scrutinized more than it would have due to several factors.
When I discuss each Week 17 game, I'll explain what the risk was if the NFL had chosen that game, and whether it would have been worth the risk based on the actual results of each game we saw this week.
First, let me toss out the games that had eliminated teams: MIN@DET, NYJ@NE, LV@DEN. I'll also toss out LAC@KC because the Chiefs had clinched everything, were resting starters, and this was known. None of these games were going to ever be chosen because they have no playoff impact. Moving on, taking things one game at a time moving forward:
PIT@CLE:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Browns to potentially clinch a playoff spot before they even played, if the Colts lost. In that case, they would have rested their starters on Sunday Night Football, not only bad for TV ratings but also potentially competitively unfair if their first playoff opponent had played starters in Week 17, and the Browns now get extra rest. Moving forward, if I mention a team who could have possibly clinched before they even played, I won't repeat these reasons of bad TV ratings and competitive imbalance. They remain the same for any team who could have clinched before they played.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? Yes. Because the Colts did beat the Jaguars, if PIT@CLE had been SNF, it would have been a must-win for the Browns, and considering how exciting that game ended up being, it would have been the perfect choice for SNF.
TEN@HOU:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Titans to potentially clinch the division before they even played, if the Colts lost.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? Yes. Because the Colts did beat the Jaguars, if TEN@HOU had been SNF, it would have been must-win (for the division) for the Titans, and it was also a very exciting game this weekend, and probably would also have been a perfect choice for SNF.
MIA@BUF:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Dolphins to potentially clinch a playoff spot before they even played, if the Ravens, Browns, or Colts lost. Additionally, the Bills only played their starters in this game to win the 2nd seed over the Steelers. Had they already clinched the 2nd seed with a Steelers loss, they may have rested their starters at night, granting Miami a free playoff spot.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? No. While Miami did not clinch a playoff spot with any of the potential losses I mentioned, the Steelers did lose, which would have let the Bills rest their starters if the game had been played at night, potentially granting Miami a free playoff spot, which would have been unfair to Indianapolis.
BAL@CIN:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Ravens to potentially clinch a playoff spot before they even played, if Cleveland or Indianapolis lost.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? Yes. Because the Browns and Colts both won, this game would have been must-win for the Ravens if it had been the last game of the night. However, considering what a blowout it was, I don't think it was a good choice for SNF for other reasons.
DAL@NYG:
What was the risk? It's obvious: if WFT@PHI were afternoon and DAL@NYG were night, then WFT winning in the afternoon would immediately eliminate both DAL@NYG making the game totally irrelevant.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? No. WFT won, eliminating both DAL and NYG
ATL@TB:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Bucs to potentially clinch the 5 seed before they even played, if the Rams lost.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? Yes. The Rams won, which would have meant the Bucs would not have rested their starters at night. It was a fairly competitive game before the Bucs pulled away at the end which could have been interesting on SNF.
GB@CHI:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Packers to potentially clinch the 1 seed before they played, or the Bears to clinch before the played, in either case letting that team rest starters and potentially benefit the other team.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? No. The Cardinals lost, which would have meant the Bears would have rested starters at night.
JAX@IND:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night could introduce the possibility of the Colts being eliminated before they even played.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? Yes. Because the Dolphins lost, the Colts would have still been alive. The game was fairly competitive and could have been interesting for SNF.
ARZ@LAR:
What was the risk? Placing this game at night would allow the Rams to potentially clinch before they even played, in which case they would rest starters and grant a free playoff spot to the Cardinals, which would be unfair to the Bears.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? No. The Bears lost, which would have meant the Rams would have rested starters at night.
SEA@SF:
What was the risk? The Seahawks were only playing for the 1 seed, nothing else. Placing this game at night would allow the Seahawks to potentially be eliminated from the 1 seed before they played, allowing them to rest starters, unfair to their first playoff opponent.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? No. The Packers won, eliminating the Seahawks from the 1 seed.
NO@CAR:
What was the risk? The Saints were only playing for the 1 seed, nothing else. Placing this game at night would allow the Saints to potentially be eliminated from the 1 seed before they played, allowing them to rest starters, unfair to their first playoff opponent.
Would the risk have paid off for the NFL? No. The Packers won, eliminating the Saints from the 1 seed.
WFT@PHI:
What was the risk? NO RISK! And hopefully after reading the risks behind choosing any of the other 15 games, in each case there was a chance the playoff implications of the game would change by nighttime, you can understand why this game was chosen.
Explanation of no risk: To determine whether a game being placed on SNF does not involve any risk on the part of the league, the playoff implications of the game must be looked at, every possible scenario in the other games must be considered, and it must be determined whether those playoff implications could change based on the results of those games.
In this case, the playoff implications of this game are: WFT needs a win to clinch the division
Can these implications change based on the result of other games? In this case, the only possible game that could influence it is DAL@NYG because the only playoff spot we're talking about is the NFC East division title.
So, is it possible for WFT to clinch the division, or be eliminated from the division, based on the result of DAL@NYG? No. No matter what happens in DAL@NYG, WFT will not clinch unless they win, and they also cannot be eliminated unless they lose. The playoff implications are still: WFT needs a win to clinch the division
The fact that DAL@NYG in no way influences the playoff implications of WFT@PHI is the reason the game carried no risk to the league if they placed it on SNF, and the reason it was in fact chosen. It's the only game out of all 16 that had playoff implications and would still have those exact same implications no matter what happened in the other 15 games.
I think where people get confused is that they make some assumptions rather than thinking things through in logical detail. This was an extremely rare scenario for 3 teams to still be alive heading into the final week, all of whom are competing for only the division title, and none of whom can get a wild card. In fact, such a scenario hadn't happened since 1977, causing people's conventional wisdom to be incorrect in this rare scenario.
The conventional wisdom I'm referring to is that teams competing for the same playoff spot must play at the same time in Week 17. For example, in the other division that was up for grabs on Sunday, the AFC South, the Titans and Colts both played at 4:25 ET. So why didn't the Cowboys, Giants, and WFT all have to play at the same time? Well here's why: it's only conventional wisdom, and THREE teams being alive for the division is an unconventional situation. Usually, the team currently in 1st place (in these examples, Titans and WFT) has two ways to clinch: with a win, or the other team losing. For example, the Titans needed a win, or a Colts loss. With three teams alive, the WFT could not hope for a Cowboys loss or Giants loss, because whichever one lost, it would mean the other one won! Either way, WFT would be pushed by one team or the other! That's why this three-team scenario is unconventional, and allowed the games to be played asynchronously.
Taking a look back at Week 16, there was another game that was still in play to be Week 17 SNF. If the Steelers had lost and Browns won, then their Week 17 meeting would have become a divisional championship game, automatically making it SNF. The divisional championship game is the ideal type of Week 17 SNF and is in fact the reason the league schedules all divisional games in the final week, just hoping for one of them to become a divisional championship game. However, neither of these things happened: the Steelers won, the Browns lost, and PIT@CLE was off the table, at least in terms of carrying no risk to the league.
Interestingly, WFT@PHI could have also been chosen for a different reason: if the Eagles had just beaten the Cowboys in Week 16, then WFT@PHI would have become a divisional championship game.
With neither of these divisional championship games coming to fruition, and WFT@PHI being the only remaining game to carry no risk as detailed earlier, it was chosen.
In past years, it's worked out for the league that there's been either a divisional championship game or a play-in game for the 6 seed every year, and that game has been chosen. The one exception (before this year) was 2017, and in 2017 in fact, there was NO snf game. Every game that day was played at either 1 or 4:25 ET. However, there was another factor at play: Week 17 that year fell on NYE, one of the worst TV nights of the year. I believe had the same playoff scenarios from that year been in place, except Week 17 fell on a different date, then some game would have been chosen.
With that in mind, which game do I think would have been chosen this year had WFT beaten CAR and clinched the division in Week 16? I think ARZ@LAR would have been chosen. The unfair aspect of it, as mentioned earlier, is that it would allow the Rams to possibly clinch before nighttime, and then on SNF, the Rams might rest starters, granting the Cardinals a free playoff spot, which would be unfair to the Bears, competing with the Cardinals for that last spot. However, out of all the unfair "risks" I mentioned for the other 15 games above, this might be the fairest in some ways because it would actually be the Bears shooting themselves in the foot. If the Rams clinched before they played, it would only be because the Bears themselves had lost. Note, however, that this is not how things played out. The Bears are currently in the playoffs because of a Cardinals loss, and in fact if they had played before ARZ@LAR instead of simultaneously, it's very likely the Cardinals would be in instead of them. These sorts of actual changes to what potential game results might have been, is exactly what the league tries to avoid and why WFT@PHI was chosen. But I do think that if WFT had beaten CAR, ARZ@LAR would have been chosen despite being less than ideal, especially because it's high-risk, high-reward. If the Bears actually had beaten the Packers, then ARZ@LAR would have become a play-in game for the 7 seed, exactly what the league wants out of that last game of the season.
One final note on how 2017 Week 17 fell on NYE and how that also factored into the league's decision to have no SNF that day: With this week's announcement that the league will be expanding to 18 weeks next season, it will now be impossible for the last day of the regular season to ever fall on NYE ever again.
Finally, we have to talk about Doug Pederson. So I think there are many things are play here.
I think the Eagles did something that a lot of teams have done before in Week 17 in a meaningless game, which is to evaluate QBs in a real game situation who haven't gotten much playing time all season. I just think that because of a few factors, it got focused on more than let's say, the Panthers subbing in P.J. Walker for Teddy Bridgewater, which the Panthers actually did do for most of the second half.
Is it possible they were tanking? I would say yes, especially when I think back to the last play Hurts was in for, which was a 4th and Goal when Pederson went for it to take the lead by 4, rather than kicking FG to tie.
However, Pederson's done stuff like that his whole career, and Hurts himself clearly tried to make the play, and it would have put them up 4, so I can convince myself either way whether he was tanking or not.
I also don't think though, whether it was just to evaluate Sudfeld or to tank, that it is equivalent to the Black Sox scandal or would have changed if the game were in the afternoon.
In terms of evaluating Sudfeld, if the rumors are true and the Eagles are going to try to cut ties with Wentz, evaluating Sudfeld made perfect sense as a Week 17 move in a game that was irrelevant to them.
In terms of purposely throwing the game to screw over the Giants, that really doesn't seem likely to me. I know the Eagles have had a bigger rivalry with the Giants over their franchise histories than their rivalries with the other 2 teams, but I honestly don't think Pederson was going to do anything different whether it was DAL, NYG, or WFT that he'd be screwing over and/or helping.
In terms of "the NFL made a mistake, this should not have been SNF. The NFC East would have been fairer if both games were simultaneous" I don't see how this is true at all. Playing the games asynchronously changed nothing, unless you're a conspiracy theorist thinking that PHI waited to see who won DAL@NYG and only once NYG won, they decided to tank (none of this is true). If both games had been at 1:00, I think PHI would have done the exact same thing. There might just have been less national scrutiny on it.
In summary, I basically think a few factors combined to make this such a big story: the fact that the Eagles draft position did improve, the fact that it was SNF, the fact that a big market like NY got screwed over, and the fact that it was still a close game when the move was made. My end conclusion is that I can understand people's frustrations, but I don't believe anything inappropriate happened, certainly not more inappropriate than the competitive imbalances that may have been created if a different game had been chosen for SNF and its playoff implications had changed based on the results of earlier games.
