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NFL Week 10 Coverage Map Analysis - 2023

My fantasy team(s) looked great in October. Now I'm placing waiver claims on QBs that have Madden franchise mode computer-generated player names. Nobody cares about that, though; to the maps!

The incredible people at 506 Sports make an NFL TV coverage map every week. I enjoy the minutiae of sports more than actual sports in most cases, and I love geography, so this one of my favorite sports-related things to look at. I've been sharing with a group chat and adding some of own highlights and analysis. The length of this endeavor has now exceeded the socially acceptable limit for a post in a group chat, so it's going to live here for as long as I remember to write it. This is probably the least interesting set of maps since I started doing this.

This week's map post can be found here: 506 Sports Week 10 Coverage Map

PSA: There's a Frankfurt game again on Sunday morning. Check your local listings and fantasy lineups accordingly.

PSA 2: There are a lot of parenthetical comments this week. I need an editor.


CBS Single

I literally just realized that there is a little "Alaska/Hawaii" box in the bottom left corner of all of these maps. I'm gonna assume it's been there the whole time and I haven't noticed. Now we're gonna track it (casually)!

Green Bay v Pittsburgh is the national game here. It may not have the star power it has in the past but these seem to be two teams with broad national appeal. An advertising win for CBS. This game reminds me of the time in 2017 or so that I declared to my fantasy football friends that "All QBs are good now." This has aged poorly. 

Maybe we were in an uncommonly great time for QBs, starting somewhere around when Peyton Manning became the top QB and ending sometime around when Eli Manning and/or Phil Rivers retired. The discourse around both of those guys that continually asked if they were good enough to be be all-time greats or legends or whatever is very funny now, because they would both be top 6 or 7 QBs easily. I take absolutely no delight in telling you that a prime Joe Flacco would be "ELITE" in the Year of Our Lord 2023.

Houston can be seen in all of Texas this week with the Cowboys in their favored FOX Late spot; Bayou City transplants rejoice! Also, the upper Ohio River Valley.

The Bucs are on in Miami this week, which you know is rare if you have been following this feature every week.

The Chargers take a lot of the west (except the Pacific North parts) and Minnesota get Detroit late instead of Green Bay against the Vikings. It sort of feels like NFC North cities basically get every game in the division almost every week. That's fun for a set of teams who have been sharing a division since 1961, when the Vikings joined the league. The other three have shared a division since 1934 (!), the year the Lions moved to Detroit from Portsmouth, OH. Early NFL geography is pretty weird when viewed from modernity.

The final CBS game is between two NFC teams that only a mother could love. The Cardinals and Falcons will be seen by people in Arizona and Georgia and that's basically it.


FOX Early

The national game is Niners v Jaguars, one of those matchups that seems so weird on the face. These teams are almost on different plains of existence in my head.

Minnesota is in all of the NFC North markets and the Saints are in Saints Country.

The AFC North seems to have a similar general vibe to the NFC North as far as watch availability and I *think* (don't have time to do the research right now) it's the closest division geographically. They all get to watch the Browns take on the Zombie Browns in the last the Colts were stolen from. (This all highlights how bonkers it is that the NFL let the Adams Family/Titans keep the Oilers name and branding. Imagine the Ravens wearing a Browns throwback! Or a Colts one!)

Brief AFC North history. The four teams have shared a division since the Browns came back in 1999 (remember Tim Couch?). The other three were together when the Browns "moved" to Baltimore in 1996 to 1999 (it was technically a new franchise but kept all the players and staff) and the pre-Ravens teams had shared a division since 1970, when the Bengals moved in the NFL from the AFL. Before that the Steelers and Browns had shared a division since 1950, when the Browns joined from the AAFC, a rival league. In the chaos of the late 1960s surrounding the impending AFL-NFL merger, the Browns and Steelers shared a division with the New York Football Giants (did not know they ever left the East or "Capitol" as it was also called) and the St. Louis Football Cardinals (1967 and 1969) and the Cardinals and the Saints (wut) (1968). 

Kansas City also gets Browns/Ravens, I guess because it's a full AFC game on FOX. I came into this season believing that any intra-conference matchups always have been and always would be on the corresponding network from time immemorial (or like the late 80s or something). NFC games are on FOX and AFC games are on CBS. The network theme songs even *sound* like those conferences. The studio teams have guys mostly associated with those conferences! CBS had AFC East QBs Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms. Then they added Steelers coach Bill Cowher! NFC had Jimmy Johnson and Mike Ditka! (Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long don't fit my narrative but whatever.)

Now it seems there's one match-up a week that violates these rules. How long has this been going on? Does anyone besides me realize it? What can we do to stop it? There are even two different showdowns that have been flip-flopped by the networks! How far does this plot go!?


FOX Late

You already know what it is. NFC East/Cowboys get their time slot, as per usual. Everyone gets that game unless you live in Washington or Washington. Seahawks and Commies is a tough matchups for the "Wait I though the WFT played in the state" crowd. One of the kids in my neighborhood growing up in Indiana argued with me, Cowboys fan, that the Washington team couldn't be in DC because "they're too busy to have a football team." He thought there were two teams in Seattle.

Was this the least interesting map of the season? Is that why I wrote about the history of two different NFL divisions?
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