Titans didn't get a primetime game for Cam Ward for a completely different reason than franchise treatment fans are used to

The Tennessee Titans were one of three teams that didn't get a single primetime game on their schedule in 2025, along with the Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints. Naturally, fans aren't stoked about that!

Same old story for the small market Titans, right? Nobody in the national media talks about them, because they don't think about them, because frankly, they don't care about them! And the NFL schedule makers are no different!

Well, not exactly. There are actually some decent logical, logistical, and historical reasons for why the team who finished dead last in 2024 isn't getting a primetime slot assigned to them in May:

Heading West With Construction At Home

The Titans play both the AFC and NFC West this season, which means they have four road games in the Mountain or Pacific time zones. That's the primary driver of the fact that they have an extremely unusual number of late window games this year; 5 to be exact. These are the home games the league prefers to put in the late afternoon slot because they start at 1:00 or 2:00pm local time. Play out west a lot, and the league needs you in the nice late afternoon slots more than they want you in primetime.

Meanwhile on the home front, Nissan Stadium is literally a construction zone at the moment. Would it be impossible to stage national primetime broadcasts from there? Not at all. But does the construction make it more of a logistical and aesthetic headache? Absolutely. So that's an active disincentive to the league and their broadcast partners.

A Shiny New Rookie Doesn't Buy You A National Spotlight

As I laid out in this article with the full schedule breakdown, history tells us a highly-drafted rookie QB doesn't actually buy you primetime coverage. The recent top pick to get more than 2 primetime slots was Caleb Williams last year with 3. And that had as much if not more to do with the fact that he plays for the Bears in the Chicago television market.

In the AFC South in particular, there's no love gained for drafting a top QB. This division has selected four top-4 QBs in the past half-decade. Collectively, those four teams were assigned a grand total of one (1) primetime game. And it wasn't even the nice kind either, it was the Jaguars on Thursday Night Football in 2021. Brian Callahan's Bengals won on a walk-off FG, by the way,

Flex In The Titans Future?

The bottom line is that the league is happy to let you prove it with a flashy new QB. If you show that you've got electric national appeal down the stretch, they'll happily flex you into primetime down the road. Here are the 2025 rules as laid out by the league office for flexing games:

"This season, “flexible scheduling” for Sunday Night Football may be used up to twice between Weeks 5-10, and in the NFL’s discretion during Weeks 11-17; for Monday Night Football at the NFL’s discretion in Weeks 12-17; and for Thursday Night Football it may be used up to twice between Weeks 13-17. During these Flex Scheduling Windows, the games initially scheduled for Sunday Night Football (on NBC), Monday Night Football (on ESPN or ABC), and Thursday Night Football (on Amazon Prime Video) are tentatively scheduled and subject to change. Only Sunday afternoon games (or those listed as TBD) are eligible to be moved to Sunday night, Monday night, or Thursday night, in which case the initially scheduled Thursday/Sunday/Monday night game would be moved to Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon games may also be moved between 12 p.m. and 3:05 p.m. or 3:25 p.m. CT."

Patriots-Titans in Week 7, Titans-Browns in Week 14, and Chiefs-Titans in Week 16 are a handful of games that could make sense to flex if the Titans and Cam Ward prove worthy of national primetime attention. It's up to them to go earn it.