Are the Vikings in danger of getting flexed OUT of prime time?

David Berding-USA TODAY Sports

It could happen

Of the five remainings games on the Minnesota Vikings’ schedule, three of them are currently set to be prime time contests. They have two matchups on Monday Night Football, as they’ll take on the Seattle Seahawks in Week 13 in Seattle and the Green Bay Packers in Week 16 at U.S. Bank Stadium. They also have a Sunday Night Football date with the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 15, their final road game of the 2019 season.

Now, the two Monday night games obviously can’t be moved, but the Sunday night game in Los Angeles could be fair game. With their loss on Monday night to Kansas City, the Chargers now sit at 4-7 on the season, and their postseason hopes are pretty much shot. If the league can find a more attractive matchup to move to that spot, there’s a chance that the Vikings might not be playing on Sunday night again after all.

So, are there more attractive matchups in Week 15 as things stand right now? Here’s the Week 15 schedule, along with the records for each team as of today.

• Buffalo Bills (7-3) at Pittsburgh Steelers (5-5)
• Green Bay Packers (8-2) at Chicago Bears (4-6)
• New England Patriots (9-1) at Cincinnati Bengals (0-10)
• Seattle Seahawks (8-2) at Carolina Panthers (5-5)
• Houston Texans (6-4) at Tennessee Titans (5-5)
• Miami Dolphins (2-8) at New York Giants (2-8)
• Philadelphia Eagles (5-5) at Washington Redskins (1-9)
• Denver Broncos (3-7) at Kansas City Chiefs (7-4)
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-7) at Detroit Lions (3-6-1)
• Cleveland Browns (4-6) at Arizona Cardinals (3-7-1)
• Jacksonville Jaguars (4-6) at Oakland Raiders (6-4)
• Los Angeles Rams (6-4) at Dallas Cowboys (6-4)
• Atlanta Falcons (3-7) at San Francisco 49ers (9-1)

Gotta be honest. . .there are not a whole lot of attractive matchups on that schedule that I can see right now.

I suppose that if the Steelers pick things up a bit, the Buffalo/Pittsburgh game could have some appeal. So could Houston/Tennessee, given how tight the AFC South race is and should be for the remainder of the year.

Carolina seems to be in a bit of a tailspin, but if they correct themselves that Seattle/Carolina game could be an option. The only matchup on the schedule between teams that are over .500 through the first eleven weeks is Rams at Cowboys, and we know that NBC just can’t get enough of the NFC East in prime time, so that’s always an option, too.

Both CBS and FOX can protect five games on their schedules from being flexed, and it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that Rams/Cowboys is one of those games that FOX has protected. The search I attempted to do for the protected games didn’t turn up any results, so I’m not sure if that information is readily available anywhere.

So, what do you think, folks? Will we see the Vikings on Sunday Night Football in Week 15?

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