Why is 'Monday Night Football' on Saturday? Explaining the Week 17-18 NFL schedule quirk (2024)

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Program your minds temporarily, everyone. “Monday Night Football” on Saturday. “Monday Night Football” on Saturday.

It must be a big deal if ESPN is moving one of the most marquee programming franchises in the history of TV. But before you start questioning what’s up and what’s down, just know this switch will only be temporary.

This Monday is New Year’s Day, and that brings college football bowl season into play. In particular, it brings the College Football Playoff into play with the Rose Bowl — Michigan versus Alabama — and the Sugar Bowl — Washington versus Texas — happening that day. Those games are being aired across numerous ESPN platforms.

So where would that put the regularly scheduled “Monday Night Football” season finale, since Week 17 is the final week of the MNF broadcasts?

That’s where Saturday comes in.

“The Week 17 game is just really a kind of a … unique scheduling scenario that came up this year,” ESPN vice president of NFL programming Tim Reed said. “So to just help the schedules out and I think optimize it for the fans, it was great that we worked with the NFL on moving from Monday night to Saturday night for Week 17.”

ESPN lucked out with this Saturday’s version of the “Monday Night Football” season finale with two playoff-bound teams — the 11-4 Detroit Lions and 10-5 Dallas Cowboys — facing off at AT&T Stadium. The league scheduled this matchup when the 2023 slate was set in May.

“Yeah, obviously the NFL made a big bet on the Lions to start the year, and they’ve been rewarded very much,” Sports Media Watch founder Jon Lewis said. “Detroit has had a great year, so very prescient scheduling by the league to put the Lions in a lot of high-profile windows.”

Also of note, two-time Super Bowl-winning and Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson will be inducted into the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor by team owner Jerry Jones. ESPN will air the presentation live. This will allow Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman to participate in the ceremony since he’ll be in attendance already as part of the MNF broadcast team.

Add it all up and this one-year Week 17 MNF changeup should still be a ratings winner.

“I think ultimately, it’s one of those situations where obviously it’s because of the calendar, it’s because of the New Year’s holiday, but they would prefer to put it on Monday night,” Lewis said. “But I think the NFL has established itself enough on Saturdays over the years that viewers are accustomed to watching NFL games on Saturdays, and if it’s a high-quality game — and obviously this is a very high-quality game, Dallas and Detroit — I think the ratings should be quite good.”

Now, not to confuse anyone, ESPN’s Saturday NFL doubleheader for Week 18 is part of the regularly scheduled programming.

This will be the third consecutive season in which games are moved to Saturday in Week 18. Like in previous years, the NFL will schedule both games to involve teams with playoff implications — for example, teams playing to stay alive for a wild-card berth, division title, conference seeding, first-round bye, etc.

The Week 18 doubleheader matchups (to be aired on ESPN and ABC) won’t be determined until the end of Week 17. With no Monday game this week, it at least gives teams more time to prepare for having their games flexed to a Saturday as opposed to if this occurred on a week with MNF occurring on its normal day and time slot.

Here’s a look at how the last two seasons’ Week 18 doubleheader matchups played out:

• In 2021, the Kansas City Chiefs toppled the Denver Broncos, which kept the Chiefs’ hopes alive for the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The Tennessee Titans secured the top seed the next day with a win over the Houston Texans. Then the Cowboys throttled the Philadelphia Eagles in the nightcap, which kept the Cowboys’ NFC No. 2-seed dreams alive. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers thwarted those hopes when they defeated the Carolina Panthers the next day.

• In 2022, the Chiefs captured the No. 1 seed in the AFC by beating the Las Vegas Raiders. Had Kansas City lost, the Buffalo Bills would’ve been the top seed since they knocked off the New England Patriots on that Sunday. Later that night, the Jacksonville Jaguars needed a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the Titans and win the AFC South. This was a win-or-go-home situation for the Jags and Tennessee.

Twenty-four teams remain in playoff contention heading into Week 17 this season, which is the same number as the last two years. Still, it will take until the end of Week 17 to fully determine the postseason scenarios heading into Week 18. The Green Bay Packers–Minnesota Vikings matchup on “Sunday Night Football” features two teams still alive in the playoff race.

“When you look at the Week 17 schedule, almost like the Week 18 schedule as of right now, it’s hard to outside of, like, maybe one game cross anything off that doesn’t have meaning,” Reed said. “I think a lot of us will be doing the same thing in watching all the games this week and see how they shake out. We’re regularly talking to the league about how they’re thinking about it. And then as the games unfold on Saturday and throughout Sunday, we’ll find out what the Week 18 schedule is like everyone else.”

Reed said there’s a back-and-forth between the league and the network on which games will be carried, but ultimately it’s the league’s call. Regardless, Lewis said the ratings for Week 18’s Saturday doubleheaders the last two seasons have been favorable for ESPN.

“The Week 18 doubleheaders’ numbers have done quite well,” Lewis said. “The numbers have been, even by Saturday standards, really strong. Last year, it was 18 million and 19 million (viewers). But two years ago, even better at 19 million and 20 million (viewers). They had to see Cowboys and Eagles that year (2021 season).

“It’s certainly numbers that are not dramatically lower than anything you get on Monday night, and really in the past couple of seasons, dramatically higher than what you would usually get on a Saturday night. So yeah, these have performed better than the normal Saturdays.”

(Top photo of Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott: Megan Briggs / Getty Images)