Chris Russo Sees a Primetime NFL Schedule Running Short on Must-Watch Games
With 13 primetime games drawing criticism, injuries and losing streaks show the risk of stretching the NFL’s national schedule.
The NFL’s primetime problem isn’t that audiences have stopped watching. The league remains a ratings behemoth, but its growing appetite for national windows is testing how many games can feel like appointments. Chris Russo’s warning about 13 bleak matchups left on the schedule points to the tension: more football on more nights can mean fewer convincing pairings.
The expansion is easy to trace. Thursday football once meant Thanksgiving; now the weekly schedule includes Thursday games, with additional dates on Black Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The NFL has also kept growing its international series and seeking more national airtime. Each added window creates another opportunity to reach viewers, but also another slot that needs a compelling game.
More windows, fewer easy choices
That balancing act gets harder as the number of featured games rises. When primetime was concentrated on Sunday and Monday, schedulers had fewer slots to fill and a broader pool of matchups to choose from. A packed slate changes the equation: promising teams and attractive pairings have to be spread across more dates, and the schedule has less room to absorb a bad run of form or a key absence.
Some of the strain is already visible. The Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles have endured difficult primetime stretches, including games in which they started backup quarterbacks. The winless Los Angeles Chargers now face a similar burden: three more games on the schedule are set for national audiences, leaving little chance for their late-season run of attention to pass quietly.
Russo put the remaining slate at 13 games he considers “dead.” On his SiriusXM show, he stressed that a strong national matchup needs both teams to have a chance, then ran through several pairings he expects to disappoint: New England at the Chargers, Cincinnati at Washington, Jacksonville against Baltimore, and the Chargers at Baltimore. His criticism is about the whole contest, not just the fortunes of one side. A marquee slot loses its appeal when the matchup no longer looks competitive or compelling.
His harshest assessment was reserved for Houston’s Christmas Eve visit to Philadelphia. Russo said he’d rather watch a New Jersey Devils pregame show—or a Yule log—than the game. He also joked that even his reluctance to wrap presents, look at a Christmas tree or attend church might not be enough to make the matchup appealing. The riff is deliberately extravagant, but the underlying point is familiar: a holiday game needs a draw strong enough to compete with everything else viewers could be doing.
Are NFL primetime games in trouble this season?
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo @MadDogUnleashed shares his thoughts on the state of the NFL’s primetime matchups.
#NFL #MadDog #Football #NFLPrimetime https://t.co/wS2u2T9vKU
— SiriusXM Sports (@SiriusXMSports) November 4, 2026
When the season changes the selling point
Houston at Philadelphia may have looked like a strong ratings prospect before the season began. The current context is much rougher: the Eagles have lost six straight, and starting quarterback Jalen Hurts is done for the year. That combination can change the character of a game that was scheduled months earlier. The original promise of a meeting between two prominent teams can fade quickly when results turn and a leading player is unavailable.
There’s a limit to what scheduling can prevent. The league can move some games out of primetime to make room for stronger matchups, but that process has constraints, and the schedule can’t anticipate every turn a season takes. Form shifts. Starting quarterbacks can miss time. A team that looked like a strong choice when the slate was built can arrive at its featured game in a very different position.
Russo is known for emphatic rants, and the Christmas Eve jokes carry his usual flair. Still, the schedule gives his complaint some weight. More national windows expand the league’s reach, but every additional showcase raises the odds that a game will lose its appeal before kickoff. Flexing can soften that risk; it can’t remove it. With the NFL committed to adding more opportunities to watch, the challenge is keeping those windows worthy of the attention they demand.
The post Chris Russo warns of ‘dead’ primetime NFL games on the horizon appeared first on Awful Announcing.
