A time to flex: Chargers fail to hold a surge

NBC decided this morning that the San Diego-Tampa Bay game that was on its original NFL schedule for Week 16 (Dec. 21) was hardly worth salvaging, and it has swapped it out to grab the Carolina-N.Y. Giants game instead.

That means the flailing Chargers against the decent Bucs game goes to CBS (which had to give up the Panthers-Giants) with a 10 a.m. kickoff in Tampa, Fla.

Fox also decided to move its Philadelphia-Washington and Atlanta-Minnesota contests that week from the early (10 a.m.) to late window (1 p.m.) so they'd likely get better viewership.

For Week 17, NBC can decide six days ahead of time which game it would like to hijack from CBS or Fox.