The Sunday night and Monday night NFL schedule is where your eyes typically start, right? When the NFL releases the season schedule in full, as it did Tuesday night, you're naturally drawn to the night games — especially those on non-Thursdays. We expect great evening theater in our pro football. But some of those games tend to fall flat. Some now, when the schedule is brand new, and some later, after we've found out that everyone's Super Bowl favorite is actually a crappy team. That can happen as soon as September. But the league does its best to please its media partners — in this case, NBC for Sundays and ESPN for Mondays. (We'll discuss the Thursday schedule in a different blog entry.) Does it always work? No, which is why we feel we can point out to you where it falls flat. Here's a look at the week-by-week prime-time games for Sunday and Monday ... and which ones you actually should watch: WEEK 1 Sunday: New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys Monday: Philadelphia Eagles at Atlanta Falcons; Minnesota Vikings at San Francisco 49ers Our take: Not a bad way to start the first week of football, but ... maybe we expected a little more? Yes, we have a division rivalry with Cowboys-Giants, and maybe Odell Beckham Jr. (recurring theme alert) or Dez Bryant do something ridiculous; we're in good hands with Al Michaels on the call there. And the next night, we have the wack-a-doodle Eagles, and I like my Chip Kelly after dark, so that's good. But playing the Falcons? Kinda meh. And that's the undercard? The nightcap is a battle of a Jim Harbaugh-less 49ers against a maybe Adrian Peterson-less Vikings? Consider us underwhelmed a bit. Verdict: We rank them thusly: in chronological order — Giants-Boys, then the battle of the birds, followed by that game out west. If you skip the last one, no one will question why. WEEK 2 Sunday: Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay Packers Monday: New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts Our take: Oh, yeah. This is what we came for. A rematch of the NFC title game, but this time it's in Green Bay. We're already asking our bosses if we can go. This is choice stuff here, and yet it's not a revenge — don't be that fan. If the Packers win, it's not going to make up for blowing a two-TD lead for a trip to the Super Bowl. Now that we have that out of the way ... you wonder if the Seahawks' banged-up secondary will be in top form this early in the season. Frankly, the Packers probably catch a mini-break getting the Seahawks this early in the season. As for the Monday game, this does't look super sexy, especially with the Jets having a new coach and being rudderless (as of now) as QB. But think of it this way: A good Jets defense got better, adding Darrelle Revis and Antonio Cromartie, and a good Colts offense got better, adding Andre Johnson and Frank Gore. Verdict: When we put it like that, the MNF game doesn't sound so bad, eh? We know Sunday will be great. Watch both games. Trust us. WEEK 3 Sunday: Denver Broncos at Detroit Lions Monday: Kansas City Chiefs at Green Bay Packers Our take: Oh. Yeah, that's our initial reaction. Look, these are four good teams on paper, and we could be treated to two very good matchups here. But Broncos-Lions in prime time? Hmm. We frankly thought this might be a Thanksgiving game or a Sunday game. We're not complaining with a Peyton Manning night game in his possible swan song season. We're not. It's just ... hmm. Same with the Monday game. Two straight at night at home for the Packers? Consider this: Many Packers fans make the drive up from Milwaukee, so that's two weeks in a row with games on school nights. Verdict: Yeah, we're still watching both. They're just ... weird matchups, that's all. WEEK 4 Sunday: Cowboys at New Orleans Saints Monday: Lions at Seahawks Our take: We still love the Lions? They lose three-quarters of their defensive line and Reggie Bush and they get two early prime-time games early on. Just a feeling here that this one might flop. The Seahawks fans get geeked for night games, though, so there's that. In the opening act, it's no slouch. You have America's Team heading down to the Big Easy — another town that loves getting well-lubricated before evening contests. These teams have had some nice battles in the past decade or so, so we can get behind that one. Verdict: If we're being honest, we're actually slightly more tuned up about the Cowboys-Saints game. WEEK 5 Sunday: 49ers at Giants Monday: Pittsburgh Steelers at San Diego Chargers Our take: Someone needs to explain this Niners thing to me. Are they going to be good? The Giants, we get — Beckham and Eli, and heck, I'll say it: I think this is a better team than people realize. But the 49ers aren't sneaking up on anyone, and we don't mean that in a good way. This is not, we'll safely predict, going to be up there with the 1990 NFC championship game or the 2002 wild-card madness game in this rivalry. Putting the Chargers on at night is dangerous. This could be the final season in San Diego, and that talk — moving to L.A. — could dominate the pre-game chatter, especially if Philip Rivers is not on the team. Maybe if Marcus Mariota becomes a Charger ... Verdict: Check back with us after the draft. We'll probably watch both, but we might need a decent reason why.
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