Broncos-Lions Week 15 Primetime Tilt Flexed by the NFL
The Denver Broncos' Week 15 tilt with the Detroit Lions has been flexed by the NFL, moving from Sunday to Saturday, December 15 at 6:15 pm MDT. The game will air nationally on NFL Network.
The Broncos are slated to finish the 2023 season with five primetime showings. Broncos-Lions was already scheduled for primetime, so the flex doesn't change that.
Denver's fifth and final (for now) primetime game will be Week 16 at home vs. the New England Patriots on Sunday Night Football. Despite New England's lackluster season, it's another Conference foe the Broncos will have to handle to maximize their playoff ambitions.
Broncos-Lions is the second game in as many weeks that the NFL has flexed. The Broncos will travel to take on the Houston Texans on Sunday at 11 am MDT, but that game was flexed from its original 2:05 kickoff on CBS.
As the Broncos continue to keep the momentum of their five-game winning streak kindled, the NFL has taken notice. Suddenly, NFL audiences want to see what Sean Payton and Russell Wilson are up to and what miracles the Broncos will conjure up on a given day.
Last year, the NFL originally slated the Broncos with five primetime games after giving the 2021 squad — the Vic Fangio regime's death rattle — only one such game. No one expected the 2022 Broncos under Wilson to lay the egg that they did.
A large swath of Broncos Country began to cringe as each primetime game approached, as the team looked unequal to its limelight opportunity one contest after another. Then Payton arrived, and the NFL decided to give the Broncos one last chance to prove deserving of five primetime games.
Thus far, the Broncos are 2-1 in primetime under Payton, with the only loss coming on Thursday Night Football to Kansas City Chiefs. The Broncos certainly won't be trying to look past a 6-5 Texans foe this week in Houston — the first of three straight road games to open December.
If the Broncos weather that road trip, building on the five-game winning streak, this team will become a very sharp tool indeed, honed in the crucible of a brutal road trip to open the stretch run. Games around the NFL rise in intensity in December, with teams battling for playoff survival.
Two of Denver's next three opponents currently sport a plus-.500 record, while the Los Angeles Chargers (Week 14) sit at 4-7 — dead-last in the AFC West. The Chargers will certainly be looking to play the spoiler in L.A. next week.
But that's a future too far into the distance for the Broncos to contemplate right now, and the same goes for the Lions in Week 15. The only game that matters, to quote All-Pro safety Justin Simmons, is the next one vs. C.J. Stroud and the Texans.
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