If your idea of a perfect precursor to watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve is watching your favorite football team not drop the ball all the way into the end zone, the NFL has one thing to say about your plans: Nope.

With no must-watch showdown between two neck-and-neck Super Bowl contenders available to compete with New Year's Eve programming, the NFL decided to forgo a Sunday night matchup entirely and schedule all their December 31 action for the afternoon instead. Seven games will kick off at 1 p.m. ET, with another nine scheduled for 4:25 p.m. (For those planning to tune in, all games will air on either CBS or Fox.)

The cancellation of Sunday Night Football may leave NBC scrambling to fill that programming block -- or possibly just catching up with NYE host Carson Daly earlier than anticipated -- but the NFL does get the final say-so when it comes to scheduling its final Sunday night game of the year. This would have been the first time since 2006 that a Sunday night game was played on New Year's Eve, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

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