The NFL will have its best TV doubleheader of the season Sunday.
The Bills-Chiefs game at Kansas City will be televised nationally by CBS as the second game starting at 4:25 p.m. The network has no other late game and Fox only has two late games –Carolina at the Rams and Arizona at Seattle. The Carolina-Rams game will be shown on Fox in Jacksonville because the Jaguars play at 1 p.m. on CBS.
Then the Sunday night game on NBC will feature the Cowboys at the Eagles.
Both figure to be ratings blockbusters. The Chiefs-Bills game is a rematch of the 13 second playoff game last January when the Bills took the lead with 13 seconds remaining, but the Chiefs came back to tie it and win in overtime.
And the Cowboys continue to be a ratings draw. Their game with the Rams last Sunday was viewed by 24.5 million fans and was the fourth largest draw of the season.
The Bills are favored by 2.5 and the Eagles are favored by six.
The two winners are going to be the frontrunners to get the top seeds in the AFC and NFC although there is still a long way to go. The Bills-Chiefs winner will be the only 5-1 team in the AFC. If Eagles beat the Cowboys, they will remain the only unbeaten team at 6-0 while a Cowboy win would leave the two teams tied at 5-1.
Two other NFC teams – the Vikings and Giants — are trying to get to 5-1. The Vikings are favored by 3.5 points over the Dolphins while the Giants are five point underdogs against the Ravens.
Meanwhile, the ratings for the doubleheader window have increased the last four weeks over last year and the Chiefs-Bills figure to make it five.
Last week’s Sunday night game between the Ravens and Bengals drew a season low of 15.88 million fans while the Raiders-Chiefs on Monday night was watched by 15.88 million fans on ESPN. It was the most watched Week 5 MNF game since 2011.
There will be eight 1 p.m. games on CBS and Fox, but only two will get much attention outside of the local markets. CBS will show the Ravens-Giants in most of the country and Fox will show the Jets-Packers in much of the country.
The other two prime time games this weekend are not feature attractions – Washington at Chicago on Thursday night on prime and Denver at the Chargers Monday night. Neither figures to get good ratings.
Four teams – Titans, Lions, Raiders and Texans – will have byes this week.