In 2006, the NFL implemented “Flexible Scheduling”, a procedure designed to promote quality clashes on Sunday evening and give surprise teams a chance to make their way on prime hours. For the 2025 season, flexible programming will include Sunday evening football, Monday evening football and football Thursday evening.
Please note that the NFL constantly examines its planning procedures to ensure that exciting and significant games are available for visualization by the greatest number of fans and therefore other modifications to flexible planning could be implemented in the future.
Current flexible planning procedures
Flexible planning is in force under the following windows (“flexible planning windows”):
For Sunday evening football, it can be used up to twice between weeks 5-10 and any week during the 11-17 weeks.
For Monday evening football, it can be used a week in the 12-17 weeks.
For football Thursday evening, it can be used up to twice between the 13-17 weeks.
During the flexible planning windows, the matches initially planned for Sunday evening football (on NBC), football Monday evening (ESPN or ABC) and football Thursday evening (on the first -rate video) are temporarily programmed and subjects to change.
Only Sunday afternoon matches (or those listed like TBD) are eligible to be moved to Sunday evening, Monday evening or Thursday evening, in which case the match initially scheduled for Sunday, Monday or Thursday evening would be moved to Sunday afternoon.
Sunday afternoon matches can also be moved between 1 p.m. and 4:05 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. he.
As in previous seasons, for week 18, the last weekend of the season, the programming on Saturday, Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening matches is not awarded.
The week 18 calendar will be announced at the end of week 17.
Additional flexible planning information:
The match that was temporarily planned for Sunday evening football, Monday evening football or football Thursday evening during the flexible planning windows will generally be listed at 8:20 p.m., 8:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. he, respectively.
The majority of Sunday matches will generally be listed at 1:00 p.m. at flexible planning windows, except for games played in the time zones of the Pacific or Mountain, which will be listed at 4:05 p.m. or 4:25 p.m..
For Sunday evening football in weeks 5-13 and for Monday evening football in the 12-17 weeks, the NFL will decide and announce no later than 12 days before the match, what a match will be played on Sunday evening and what a match will be played on Monday evening.
For Sunday evening football in the 14-17 weeks, the flexible planning decision will generally be taken no later than 6 days before the match.
For football Thursday evening in the 13-17 weeks, the flexible planning decision will generally be taken no later than 21 days before the match.
Fans and ticket holders should be aware that NFL games in flexible planning windows are likely to generally change at least 12 days in advance (and at least 6 days in advance for Sunday in the 14-17 weeks) and should plan accordingly.
