SI Lists Jets as Highly Likely to Land Week 18 Primetime Slot

'Sunday Night Football Flex Power Rankings' project Gang Green as desired choice

The New York Jets open their regular season schedule in a primetime national television window and Sports Illustrated suggests they are likely to close out the 2023 campaign in similar fashion.

For the eighth year in a row, SI's Mitch Goldich presented the "internet’s only annual preseason Week 18 Sunday Night Football flex power rankings."

With the NFL's flex scheduling concept turning the SNF regular season finale into a to-be-determined matchup, it's a worthwhile exercise to project which teams will wind up duking it out in Game No. 272.

As Goldich sees it, the Jets and New England Patriots are the second most-likely matchup out of the 16 Week 18 possibilities. Gang Green is slated to travel to Foxboro for what could be a highly-meaningful finale that makes for compelling television.

If the Jets at Patriots game happens to carry even the slightest postseason implications, then NBC network executives will likely salivate over the idea of featuring it in the highest-rated time slot of the weekend.

The Jets and Patriots edged out their AFC East rivals in the preseason rankings. The Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins game was slotted as the third most-likely matchup to land on SNF in Week 18. The always-intense AFC North rivalry between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens occupied the No. 1 spot on the list. 

From The Week 18 Sunday Night Football Flex Power Rankings:

2. Jets at Patriots

This is the game the NFL would want most. The league would move heaven and earth to put it on NBC if it mattered. Aaron Rodgers’s first season in New York is the headline of the NFL season, the top story line, whether you like it or not. Its conclusion, if it matters, will be documented. (Remember how much his offseason trade limbo impacted the entire season’s schedule?) That is how much the league cares about having Aaron Rodgers and the New York media market on television as much as possible this year. The Patriots give me some pause. My distressingly knowledgeable colleague Conor Orr thinks they will win the AFC East, and he was sober when he said it. I do not. Could they hang around and flirt with a wild card? Maybe. I also think this is a team that would play hard even if already eliminated, for plenty of reasons. First, Bill Belichick absolutely hates the Jets. Second, there are stories about his being on the hot seat, whether you believe them or not. And third, every win counts as he chases down Don Shula on the all-time list. He’s not going to let his team throw away a game without trying. So it’s a very appealing pick, and if it lands in the prime-time spot I will kick myself and feel very silly for leaving it short of my No. 1 choice. But I can’t because there is one game I think is just more likely to matter on both sides. 

— Mitch Goldich

Jets' DE Micheal Clemons sacks Patriots' QB Mac Jones in 2022 / © Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports

The Jets are already slated for six featured appearances in standalone TV windows this season, including the the first-ever NFL Black Friday game on Prime Video.

Gang Green last appeared on Sunday Night Football in 2011. Robert Saleh's team will end that drought when it hosts the Super Bowl LVII champion Kansas City Chiefs on October 1 in Week 4.

The Green & White will make a second SNF appearance in Week 10 against the Las Vegas Raiders.

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