Quite a clear indication that, for ratings, NBC believes Favre > Brady.
The NFL has moved the Patriots/Dolphins game from the Dec. 6 NBC Sunday night matchup to a 1 p.m. start to make way for two first-place teams. It is its first flex move of the season.
The Sunday night game will now be the 9-1 Minnesota Vikings against the 7-3 Arizona Cardinals, featuring two iconic, veteran, Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner.
via Broadcasting & Cable.
Great move….now fox can show cowboys/giants to an even bigger audience.
Didn’t know Kurt Warner is iconic.
Is it snarky to point out that NFL fans watching when Favre/Warner started may not be in the demo anymore?
And I view it as more NBC seeing ratings weakness in the Ronnie Brown(and thus Wildcat)-less, Henne(who?)-lead Dolphins than Favre bing > Brady.
Yeah, another football nut here. You’ve got plenty of time to read weekend NFL reviews before those Sunday fast nationals show up
Stupid move by NBC and/or the NFL. Who cares about two quarterbacks who should have retired years ago. The only reason people think Favre is any good is because the Vikings were such a bad team without him.
Personally, I don’t give a crap about this game, so I will be one less viewer watching SNF on NBC. Besides, CBS and Fox overruns into primetime tend to get more viewers than SNF anyway.
Tom, of course it was the entire matchup, but Favre and Brady are two of the three NFL names (+Manning) that regular people might know.
That, and the alliterative potential was too great to pass up.
Brett Favre actually died a few years ago, this is just some scruffy old guy wearing the number 4
To Joe:
The vikings made the playoffs last year even without favre.
This is what the flex option was set up for. Good move by the league and NBC will benefit from it. The cards and vikes could both make the super bowl this season, the fish don’t have a shot against the pats.
Joe–who cares about those old qb? well, in Farve’s case many people and the ratings back that up. I predict this will be one of the highest rated games of the season.
Good deal. Minnesota-Arizona is a great matchup featuring two Hall of Fame quarterbacks (5 MVPs, 4 Super Bowl appearances and 2 rings combined).
I’m not a Cardinals or Warner fan, but who doesn’t think Kurt Warner who is only the second quarterback in NFL history to take two teams to the Super Bowl is not iconic?
Lizard
Not to mention that Warner is the only QB in NFL history to pass for over 14,000 yards for two different teams. This is a great move by the NFL/NBC. It may piss off some people on the east coast, but for the rest of the country, this is a much more interesting game than Pats @ Fish.
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Stupid move by NBC and/or the NFL. Who cares about two quarterbacks who should have retired years ago. The only reason people think Favre is any good is because the Vikings were such a bad team without him.
Personally, I don’t give a crap about this game, so I will be one less viewer watching SNF on NBC. Besides, CBS and Fox overruns into primetime tend to get more viewers than SNF anyway.
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wut a doochbag! Probably a Pats fan. Shows you what you know!
Joe – You’re quite the football aficionado, huh? Favre has the highest QB rating in the league and is probably the leading candidate for MVP at this point (although it’s close with Manning and Brres). The Vikings were actually in the playoffs last year, and a lot of people obviously care about Favre according to the ratings.
So I think the only thing you got correct in your post is your name… or did you?
This is a no brainer. Favre vs. Warner obviously has more name recognition, but beyond that, this match up is one much more likely to produce a great game. Pats vs. Phish will likely be a blowout.
Two overrated teams playing against each other, damn nobody to root for. The Phins would still be in the race so CBS will benefit from Tomcat at Miami. NFL on CBS is the best network out of the NFL networks right now anyways that’s why PIT-KC & CLE-DET were a great watch down the stretch.
I’m a little surprised. I actually try to consider the possibilities for NBC to flex games. I thought this would be one of them but unlikely, especially with Brady facing one of his kryptonite teams on the road (the other kryptonite being Denver).
I felt the likely scenario would be to only flex out the Dallas at Washington game on the next to last week of the season and put on playoff-contending Jacksonville at New England instead.
But this does make sense. Some of you don’t seem to like the idea of the Cardinals being on SNF.
Geez, didn’t NBC get really nice ratings from a Cardinals game like a year ago. I heard they called that one of the best games of all time. Or am I confusing that with another game?
I don’t give a shit about neither one of these teams neither. NFL on CBS has become the best of the NFL networks.