We Speak NFL

NFL Cancels Sunday Night Football This week

Published

9 years ago

December 27, 2017

The NFL has canceled the final Sunday night football game of the season. Don’t worry, no one was going to watch anyway.

Next Sunday’s game had two disadvantages: The games all had a likelihood of being dull by the time Sunday night rolled around. And this coming Sunday is New Year’s Eve, a day when historically few Americans watch television.

The last time the NFL held a Sunday night football game on New Year’s Eve was in 2006, when the Chicago Bears hosted the Green Bay Packers. It was expected to be quarterback Brett Favre’s last game with the Packers (and widely expected to be his last game ever). Still, only 13.4 million people watched that game, about a quarter fewer than the average Sunday Night Football game that season.

Since the last Sunday night football game also happens to be the final game of the season, the NFL tries to schedule a game that will definitely have playoff implications for one or both of the teams playing. (A team that already made the playoffs might sit their starters, leading to an exceptionally boring game.)

This season, there were no such games that met the NFL’s criteria on the final week’s schedule. The NFL, which hadn’t yet announced which teams would play Sunday night, would have either scheduled a game that had a chance of being a snooze or a game that already had no playoff implications at all.

Instead, there will be seven games scheduled for 1 p.m. and an unusually high nine games scheduled for 4:25 p.m. kickoffs. There won’t be an 8:30 p.m. game this year.

“We felt that both from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective, the most fair thing to do is to schedule all Week 17 games in either the 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. windows,” said Howard Katz, the NFL’s broadcasting chief, in a prepared statement.

All of Sunday’s games will be broadcast on CBS or Fox. NBC won’t have a game this coming week, and NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy declined to comment about whether the network would be compensated for the lost broadcast. Unlike other weeks of the season, the NFL has the sole discretion about the scheduling of the final Sunday night game of the year.

2017 has been a tough year for the NFL. The ratings for this NFL’s season are down 9% from last year.

We Speak NFL

Daniels, Commanders Score 27 Straight to Beat Eagles 27-10 on Sunday Night Football

Published

3 hours ago

November 2, 2026

We Speak Media

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) passes against Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Moro Ojomo (97) during the second half on Nov. 1, 2026 at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md. (Geoff Burke/Imagn Images)

Jayden Daniels threw for 217 yards and a touchdown as the Washington Commanders scored 27 straight points to beat the Philadelphia Eagles 27-10 on Sunday Night Football, Washington’s first win in more than a month.

Philadelphia jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter on Jake Elliott’s 40-yard field goal and Saquon Barkley’s 3-yard touchdown run, set up by a Chig Okonkwo fumble. It was all Washington from there. Drew Stevens kicked a 56-yard field goal late in the first quarter, Daniels tied the game in the second quarter with an 8-yard touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs at the end of an 11-play, 89-yard drive, and Stevens’ 39-yard field goal with 19 seconds left gave the Commanders (2-4-1) a 13-10 halftime lead.

Washington scored the only points of the third quarter after a Tanner McKee fumble, as Daniels hit Treylon Burks for 53 yards and Stevens converted from 25 yards to make it 16-10. A 15-play Eagles drive ended with no points when Elliott’s 41-yard try hit the left upright with 8:58 to play, his first missed kick of the season. Stevens answered with a 42-yarder for a 19-10 lead with 3:43 left, and Washington closed out the scoring on Rachaad White’s 1-yard touchdown run and Austin Ekeler’s two-point conversion run with 1:52 remaining. Stevens finished with four field goals, and Daniels completed 16 of 29 passes with no interceptions and added 23 rushing yards.

Playing without Terry McLaurin, who is out for the season with a torn patellar tendon, Daniels spread the ball around: Burks led Washington with three catches for 81 yards, Antonio Williams had five catches for 54 yards and Diggs caught three passes for 38 yards and the touchdown. White ran for 55 yards on 11 carries as Washington rushed for 135 yards. The Commanders sacked McKee five times, forced a fumble and an interception and held Philadelphia to 268 total yards.

McKee completed 23 of 34 passes for 212 yards in his third start of the season in place of Jalen Hurts. Barkley was held to 30 yards on 13 carries for the Eagles (2-6), who lost their sixth straight game, the franchise’s longest losing streak since 2012, and fell into last place in the NFC East. The win, Daniels’ first as a starter since October 2025, split the season series after Washington’s 24-22 loss at Philadelphia in Week 1 and pulled the Commanders within two games of the idle first-place New York Giants.