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Big news, 49ers fans! The NFL and NBC have announced that they will flex the 49ers-Seahawks Week 16 matchup to 5:20pm on NBC's Sunday Night Football! The game was previously scheduled as a 1:25pm FOX game. The Chargers and Jets were previously scheduled for SNF, but obviously that matchup has gone south. This will be the 49ers sixth prime time game of the season, and the second of back-to-back Sunday Night Football appearances.
This is good news for a variety of reasons. The first is of course it gets the game on national television for fans who would not otherwise get the FOX game. The second is that NBC streams all their SNF games online. Streams are always available for other games, but NBC puts together a high quality, and more importantly LEGAL, stream for fans to watch. I'll post reminders about that in a couple weeks.
This decision is not surprising as first place could very well be on the line in two weeks when these two teams meet. In Week 15, the 49ers face the Patriots in Foxboro and the Seahawks face the Bills in Buffalo. There is no guarantee first place will be on the line, but this matchup will have playoff implications. Both teams are right in the thick of the playoff race and the two teams are emerging as solid rivals.