Were the Pats & Bills on Fox earlier
or was I dreaming?
I was watching Jets-Broncos on CBS but switching over to Fox something didn't feel right. I thought Fox got all television rights when a NFC team is on the road and CBS has AFC road teams.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Some have asked why a New England Patriots-Buffalo Bills game would be on Fox, not CBS. Patriots president Jonathan Kraft explained on 98.5 The Sports Hub the new television programming policy called cross-flex.
"We started this season with something called cross-flex. We've always had that Sunday night flex where you could flex a game in or out in the back half of the season. And starting this season after Week 5, we did something where on a weekend like this, where CBS decides a couple weeks ago what looks like the big games. And in this case you had Denver and the Jets, and you are deciding when the Jets are 1-1 and Denver is Denver, you have Pittsburgh and Cleveland which is always a marquee divisional matchup, so a Bills-Patriots game that didn't look that exciting for the network up against other stuff, we were only scheduled to go to like five or six percent of the country.
"Fox had a much lighter slate at 1 o'clock today -- it's their doubleheader weekend, they have a bunch of games late. So they were willing, if they could take this game to clear it to something like 20 percent of the country, that way two teams that are 3-2 and battling for first place don't get stuck just basically going to Buffalo and the New England markets. Now it will go to a larger portion of the country. Hopefully NFL fans in general will get to choose from the most interesting games possible. And that was the idea behind flexing across networks. And so we have the honor of being the first one."
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4769931/jonathan-kraft-explains-cross-flex-of-pats-bills
Worked for me. I haven't missed a Pats game yet this season here in the Four Corners.
as a fan of a team that is aired between & Yuma & Apache County and the other team's local market pretty much every week, unless the other team has some reach pretty much nobody sees us.
It could be a good thing depending on how it is used but don't like where this is heading. Green Bay @ Miami, Detroit @ Minnesota, and Carolina @ Cincinnati (2 first place teams!) were cut out of this larger portion of the country. I understand Fox execs expected higher ratings and interest from a New England match-up over Cincinnati(w/ Dalton's improved play they're really good this year) or Carolina. Despite an Arizona game being locked into limited markets, it seemed fair that conferences were tied to a network. Cowboys never have to worry about this shit.
Glad anytime a fan can catch an opportunity to see their team, there was a time in the late 90's and early 2000s where I could always count on Denver aired on CBS and Arizona on Fox unless a team like a Detroit came into town. In the end everyone is being nationally broadcast which ensures league wide viability that the other leagues don't have where teams have to rely on local TV deals and when one of these teams that no one watches moves up the standings experts were downgrade & underrate and act like everyone is shocked (not just them) when they fall to their expectations. 
On edit - I don't know what Jonathan Kraft means by "light". They aired the same number of games (3) both early & afternoon. Actually 4 for the morning counting Pats-Bills. If they mean by no Cowboys at 1 then it makes sense.
Second edit - http://506sports.com/ Looking at coverage maps is always interesting. Looks like that 6% (Buffalo & Boston) got stuck w/ the late Oakland-San Diego game instead. Though if they stayed on Fox they saw the Cowboys.