Man, if you were trying to catch any last-minute hot takes before kickoff this past Sunday, you were probably outta luck, ’cause the Texans-Jaguars game in London chewed up the clock right until 12:48 p.m. ET. That left a measly twelve minutes for the Fox and CBS pregame shows before the full slate of noon games started, barely enough time to grab another coffee. It’s wild how quick the league’s changing our Sunday morning ritual.
Your Pregame Ritual Just Got Crunched
This isn’t just a one-off thing, either. We’re on the third straight Sunday that’s had a 9:30 a.m. ET game messing with our usual pregame routine. Just last week, that Eagles-Jaguars matchup from across the pond straight up ate into the ratings for both the Fox and CBS noon ET pregame shows, according to what Sean Keely over at Awful Announcing pointed out. Think about it, we’re used to hours of breakdown, injury updates, and hot debates, and now we’re getting squeezed like a lemon. And get ready, ’cause three more of these early kickoffs are on the way: Week 7 has Steelers-Saints, Week 9 brings Bengals-Falcons, and Week 10 gives us Patriots-Lions. If you love those shows, you’re gonna have to wake up even earlier, or just catch the tail end.
The Future Is More Games, Less Pregame
Here’s where it gets real for the long haul. The next Collective Bargaining Agreement, whenever that drops, is set to expand the annual international games slate to a whopping sixteen! Sixteen! You know what that means: way more games played over in Europe. And you guessed it, that means way more of these 9:30 a.m. ET kickoffs that just demolish the traditional pregame window. We’re gonna see Fox and CBS’s pregame shows get hammered even more by live game action. Plus, with the NFL news cycle going 24/7, you’ve gotta wonder if this whole model even makes sense anymore. It’s already sparking talk about overhauling things entirely, maybe shifting those pregame shows to the hour *before* the 9:30 a.m. ET games even start. Get ready to adjust your alarms, folks, ’cause your Sunday mornings are about to look a lot different.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Pro Football Talk.
Leave a Reply