Rams could be flexed out of Thursday Night Football matchup vs Saints

The Los Angeles Rams were only given two primetime games on their 2023 schedule and it’s possible that by the end of the season, they will have only played one of those. The NFL passed a new rule on Monday that allows the league to flex out two Thursday night games between Week 13-Week 17 if they feel that another matchup would be more enticing to a national audience.

The Rams are scheduled to play the New Orleans Saints in Week 16 on Thursday, December 21st.

With the new flexing rule, L.A.’s rematch of the controversial 2018 NFC Championship game may end up being one of their two sacrifices. The NFL only has five games to choose from with the option to flex and must give teams at least 28 days notice before making the change. That means that if the Rams and/or Saints don’t look competitive enough by mid-November that the league may choose to make a change and therefore force any fans who bought tickets to see the game at SoFi Stadium on December 21st to come up with new plans.

The other games that are options include:

Week 13 - Seahawks at Cowboys

Week 14 - Patriots at Steelers

Week 15 - Chargers at Raiders

Week 16 - Saints at Rams

Week 17 - Jets at Browns

Any of these games could end up being less consequential by midseason, but maybe Patriots-Steelers comes the closest to potentially having two non-playoff contenders.

The other Week 16 games of note that the NFL could look to flex (and I’m assuming that we’re not including their two Saturday games that week, Bengals at Steelers and Bills at Chargers) would be: Packers at Panthers, Lions at Vikings, and Cowboys at Dolphins.

A Dallas vs Miami game might end up being the toughest to hold off of the flex schedule. The Rams and Saints have even more to play for this season, that is unless they don’t want to play on Thursday night. Some would say that is preferable anyway.

L.A. only other primetime game is Week 4’s Monday night game against the Bengals.