The NFL is making a change to how we watch football on Sundays.
The league announced Thursday that it is moving its 4:15 p.m. ET Sunday kickoffs to 4:25 p.m. to reduce overlap with the 1 p.m. games. The 4:05 p.m. ET games will remain unchanged.
The move is to reduce the instances in which fans miss the end of the 1 p.m. ET telecast because they receive the opening kickoff of their home team's late afternoon games.
"In researching the kickoff time shift, the NFL analyzed games from the 2009-11 seasons and found that 44 games required part of the audience to be switched to a mandatory doubleheader game kickoff," a release from the league reads. "With a 4:25 p.m. ET kickoff time, that number that would have been reduced by 66 percent to only 15 games.
"Approximately 40 games over the full 2012 season will be impacted by the 10-minute kickoff time shift -- with half of those moves coming in games played in Mountain or Pacific time zones with 1:25 p.m. or 2:25 p.m. local starts."
While this isn't great news for some postgame shows around the country, it's outstanding for fans. We'll see the end of more games. There was nothing more frustrating than having a close game turned "off" because of the close of the 4:15 p.m. window.
We'll watch a little more football. What could be bad about that?
