FOX Dumps Rodgers And Packers Vs Bills Game For Manziel And Browns VS Bengals

If you’re a longtime watcher of NFL football, today might have you scratching your head in terms of which football games you’ll be able to watch. The matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Buffalo Bills has been scratched by FOX in almost the entire southern half of the country to bring you the Cleveland Browns taking on the Cincinnati Bengals.

There are several reasons why.

Even though the game between the Packers (10-3) and the Bills (7-6) has some major implications regarding the playoffs, even though the Packers look like they may be rolling towards another Super Bowl if they can win in New York and top the Lions in their last regular season game for possible home field advantage throughout the post season, and even though Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the frontrunner for League MVP, FOX ditched the game throughout half the country for one major reason: Johnny Manziel.

Wait a minute, you might be saying. Why is the Browns/Bengals game even on FOX since it’s an AFC matchup?

Starting this year, the NFL started something called “cross flexing,” which enables CBS and FOX to poach one game out of the other network’s schedule. In the case of the Packers/Bills and Browns/Bengals games, as a perk for paying the NFL $1 billion a year to carry the games, NBC has a right to flex out of their regularly scheduled Sunday night game if “there is a more appealing option.” NBC decided to stay with their regularly scheduled game two weeks ago when the Dallas Cowboys played the Philadelphia Eagles. Since that would have normally been a FOX game, it left FOX one game short on the season for their 4 p.m. (EST) time slot, so they moved the Minnesota Vikings-Detroit Lions game from 1 p.m. (EST) back to 4 p.m. (EST). The move, however, left an unbalanced schedule because now six 1 p.m. (EST) games were scheduled on CBS and only three games on FOX. So, the Browns/Bengals game was moved over to FOX.

Confused yet?

What’s interesting is that the schedule move was made two weeks ago according to Business Insider, before anyone had any idea that Johnny Manziel would be starting for the very first time in an NFL game. Millions of football fans will be eager to watch just for that reason alone, so in a way, FOX lucked out big time with the cross flex switch. However, FOX also decided to make the Browns/Bengals game a primary focus because of Manziel, and that knocks the Packers vs Bills game out of the television sets of half the country.

Here’s a map showing the breakdown of who gets to watch what before the switch.

And here’s a map showing the schedule after the switch.

What do you think? If you’re in the southern half of the country, would you rather be watching the Packers – Bills game today on FOX? If you’re in the north, would you rather watch the Browns – Bengals and Johnny Manziel’s first NFL start?

[Images via 506 Sports, ProFootballRosters and Chat Sports