December 11th, 2012 
Matt Loede 
Posted in By Jordan Aaron
Were you looking forward to Sunday Night football? Yes? Well too bad. The December 23 game is being moved down to the early session at 1:00 as the ‘Hawks – 49ers game is being moved to the headline Sunday Night Game.
Can you blame the NFL and NBC? SNF is a big profit garner for league. Why waste it on a matchup between two bottom line teams? The Chargers (5-8) and Jets (6-7), both currently praying that miracles will happen, letting them sneak their ways into the playoffs – although one can hardly make a case for either team.
The Jets aren’t out of it. The two contenders the Jets have to face are the Steelers (7-6) and the Bengals (7-6). The Steelers are shoe-ins as they can easily slip by the Cowboys, Bengals and Browns. The Bengals will have to play the Ravens and Steelers in games they will probably lose. In the quite possible case that the Jets and Steelers end in a deadlock, they will have to dual each other for the playoff spot. In the phenomenal words of the great Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
So why would the Sunday Night Football crew dismiss the importance of a Jets game when the Jets have just as good a chance to be in the playoffs as the Seahawks? Is it because the Seahawks are better? Yes. Is there a more entertaining game to put on TV? Yes. Is the Colin Kaeppernick hype TV gold? Yes.
I can’t blame the NFL for flexing the schedule and moving the Jets back to 1:00. Not only is this an ingenious way to use the ability to flex, but it also brings convenience to millions of Jets fans and I. Now we can go to the game not needing to worry about waking up for work or school tomorrow.
You do know that the Jets and Steelers won’t be “dualing each other for a playoff spot,” right?
A) It’s duel, not dual.
B) There are no one-game playoff’s in the NFL to determine who gets into the field of 12. The NFL uses tiebreakers, and in the instance of the Jets and Steelers finishing in a two-way tie at 9-7, the Steelers would get in by virtue of a head-to-head victory over the Jets in Week 2.
The Jets playoff chances are almost nonexistent. They need to win out, and hope that Pittsburgh finishes 8-8. In the case of the Bengals, if both teams finish 9-7 and Pittsburgh is 8-8 (unlikely), the Jets will get in by virtue of a conference record tiebreaker.
I used the word *duel for better diction. I know what a head to head is. Look at the other article above that talks about it.