When the time comes, it may get joked about as another Thursday night snoozer to the national landscape, but don’t expect the Pittsburgh Steelers Dec. 7 Thursday night game against the New England Patriots to be flexed. Mostly because it can’t.
Though it’s likely to be a low-scoring game between two lackluster offenses, NFL guidelines mandate that any Thursday Night Game be flexed at least 28 days in advance of the game.
From Pro Football Talk, which noted that in agreeing for Thursday night games to be flexed, there had to be extra advanced notice compared to normal flexing rules.
“Instead of 15 days’ notice before a game can be moved from Thursday to Sunday (and, in turn, another game moved from Sunday to Thursday), a full 28 days will be required to do a Thursday-Sunday switcheroo.”
As of Sunday, there are 25 days until Dec. 7. Meaning, by rule, the Steelers-Patriots’ Week 14 game can no longer be moved. This helps give fans attending the game as much notice as possible. Even flexing Thursday night games, new for 2023, was a controversial topic that Steelers President Art Rooney II came out against.
“I didn’t support flexing those games,” Rooney said in March, noting that he eventually agreed to teams being able to play up to two Thursday night games in a season.
Pittsburgh falls into that camp this year having played the Tennessee Titans in Week Nine and the Pats in Week 14. Still, it’s understandable why many would like to see it pushed. Pittsburgh is a bottom-third scoring offense struggling to even hit the 20-point mark this year. But compared to the Patriots, they might as well be the Greatest Show on Turf. New England has scored more than 21 points once all season and looked lifeless in today’s 10-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, a forgettable game for the Germany crowd. Starting QB Mac Jones was benched in favor of Bailey Zappe, who promptly threw a pick off a fake spike to end the game.
Like it or not, and the national media, fans, and very likely Al Michaels will not, you’ll see the Steelers-Patriots in early December.
