The NFL will have a rare doubleheader of football on Monday night. But not a doubleheader of Monday Night Football.

The difference may sound small, but it's an important distinction that means most fans will not have access to a live broadcast of both games -- the regularly scheduled Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans game on ESPN at 8:30 p.m. ET and the rescheduled New York Giants-Minnesota Vikings game in Detroit at 7:20 p.m. ET on Fox.

The Ravens-Texans will be shown on ESPN in the normal, nationally-televised Monday Night Football window. The Giants-Vikings game, rescheduled after a massive snowstorm crippled Minneapolis and collapsed the roof of the Vikings' playing home at the Metrodome, will be televised only regionally on Fox and to subscribers of DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket.

That means only viewers in the TV markets around New York City, Albany, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Rochester, Minn., and Mankato, Minn., will have access to the game on their local Fox affiliate.

That's only about 10% of the U.S. TV market, far less than the distribution the game was originally set to have in its originally scheduled time of 1 p.m. ET Sunday. Fox sent its premier broadcast team of Troy Aikman and Joe Buck to Minnesota to call the game, and the pair will be in Detroit to call Monday's matchup.

ESPN broadcasts a Monday Night Football doubleheader in Week 1 each season, when the two games run back-to-back and are both available to 100% of the country. But on Monday, ESPN owns contractual exclusivity to the national broadcast window, which will limit the fans who have access to the Giants-Vikings game -- even if many NFL followers might want to see the NFC faceoff more than the Ravens-Texans game.

In order to have access to both games live, which will be played concurrently once ESPN kicks off at 8:30 p.m. ET, fans will have to:

Live inside one of the TV markets with access to the Giants-Vikings game.

Be a subscriber to -- or be at an bar/restaurant with a subscription to -- DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket, which broadcasts out-of-market games every Sunday afternoon.

However, all fans will have access to a rebroadcast of the Giants-Vikings game at midnight, ET on NFL Network.

For the vast majority of fans who won't have access to the Giants-Vikings game live, ESPN and Fox have agreed to provide in-game highlights so that viewers of one game can check in on the other.

Fans in the Detroit area, where Ford Field will host the Giants and Vikings, have another option to see the NFC game. The NFL and the Detroit Lions distributed free tickets to the game.

UPDATE: Lions end ticket giveaway after 'overwhelming response'

The game is significant for both the 8-4 Giants, who trail the Philadelphia Eagles by a half-game in the NFC East, and the Vikings, who are still clinging to faint playoff hopes at 5-7 and face a potentially giant development on Monday night. QB Brett Favre, who injured his throwing shoulder last week, told USA TODAY on Sunday that he doubts he'll be able to play -- which would bring his NFL-record streak of 297 straight starts to and end.

That could bring an understated -- and under-televised -- end to a streak that millions of Americans have watched develop since 1992, when Favre took over as the starting QB of the Green Bay Packers.

-- Sean Leahy