Opening game

The first regular-season game to be shown by NBC under this contract, Miami at Pittsburgh, aired September 7, 2006, followed by the first Sunday-night game—Indianapolis at the New York Giants—on September 10, 2006. The actual first game of the run—the 2006 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between Oakland and Philadelphia—was televised on August 6, 2006.

Flexible scheduling

NBC Sunday Night Football is the beneficiary of the league’s new flexible-scheduling system. For the final seven weeks of the season (seven of the final eight weeks during the 2006 season because of Christmas weekend), the NFL has the flexibility in selecting games to air on Sunday night. During the 2006 season, no game was initially scheduled for NBC in the affected weeks—instead, the schedule slot for the NBC game was left blank, with one Sunday afternoon game being moved to the primetime slot (the schedule for the affected weeks simply read ‘one of these games will move to 8:15 Eastern’). CBS and FOX could each protect four of its games during Weeks 10-15 and also each protect one of its games for Week 17; however, these two networks had to decide which games to protect in early October 2006, after Week 4 of the NFL season.

2006

In the 2006 season, there was no game played on the first Sunday night which overlapped with the World Series (October 22 in the 2006 season), along with Christmas Eve night; NBC broadcast that week’s game (Eagles at Cowboys) on Christmas afternoon instead. However, the broadcast of Football Night in America continued at its regular time on both occasions each Sunday, with a half-hour version of the program airing before the Christmas game and the two “Wild Card Saturday” games.

2007

In 2007, there was no game broadcast on NBC for Sunday, October 28 due to Game 4 of the 2007 World Series, although Football Night in America aired at its usual time that week. Also, a tentative full-season schedule was unveiled, including games in the last seven weeks of the season. Those games could be replaced under flexible scheduling if the need arose. Three of the games in the last seven weeks were eventually replaced with more compelling matches. This resulted in the unprecedented situation–twice–of having a team playing consecutive Sunday nights. New England had consecutive Sunday nighters: the November 18 New England at Buffalo game was moved to prime time and was followed on November 25 by the already-scheduled Philadelphia at New England game. Likewise, the Washington Redskins played a scheduled game at the New York Giants on December 16, and their December 23 game in Minnesota was moved to prime time. The same rules under which CBS and FOX protect games for their own packages still apply.

2008

The 2008 schedule, released April 15, continued the current practice of a scheduled game possibly being moved in favor of a more compelling one during Weeks 11 through 16 (November 16 through December 21), but leaves the slot open on the final Sunday, December 28. The NFL Kickoff Game between the Washington Redskins and defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants that was played on September 4 started at 7:00 p.m. instead of the normal 8:30 p.m. time in order to avoid conflict with the nomination speech that John McCain gave at the Republican National Convention that night; the game ended at 10:01pm EDT, averting any conflict. As in previous years, one Sunday night (October 26) featured no game broadcast due to Game 4 of the World Series, although Football Night in America aired as usual that week. As happened in 2007, a team played on consecutive Sunday nights due to a game being moved into the Sunday night time slot. The originally scheduled Giants-at-Dallas game on December 14 was followed by a flexed December 21 home game for the Giants (against Carolina). During this season, the schedule was flexed a total of three times on December 7th, December 21st, and the open slot on December 28th.