It was no surprise when the NFL announced Monday that it would flex out the Week 11 Sunday Night Football game between the 2-6 San Diego Chargers and 3-5 Kansas City Chiefs. And, if you’d given the barebones schedule for that Sunday even a cursory glance, there was no doubt which game would take its place: the undefeated Cincinnati Bengals going south to face the NFC West-leading Arizona Cardinals.

Still, that didn’t make Monday’s announcement any more jarring. Just take a step back and let this soak in: The Bengals have been flexed into the NFL’s biggest weekly showcase. The Bengals! A team that hasn’t won a playoff game since Home Alone was in theaters — the original! The Bengals! A team that’s made the playoffs the last four years and lost every game! No one wants to see this. It’s like having the dude who did that “cheerleader” song perform at halftime of the Super Bowl. That’s like remaking The Godfather with Randy Quaid as Don Corleone. It’s the Bengals! In primetime! Moved there to replace another game for the first time ever. Not just out of obligation or because they’re playing an NFL blue blood, but because the NFL deemed that people wanted to see this!

And to play the Cardinals? You know what statement doesn’t get the juices flowing: The Bengals are playing the Cardinals.

NBC sent out a triumphant press release Monday morning touting that Sunday’s Packers-Broncos game had an impressive 14.3 overnight rating, meaning that “in each of first 9 games, NBC’s SNF overnight has been a 13.0-or-better – the first time in 10-season history of SNF on NBC.” Pretty sure that streak is ending in three weeks.

It’s not that either team is bad: They’re quite good, actually. Cincy is still undefeated and the Cardinals are a legitimate Super Bowl threat. But it’s not a sexy matchup. It’s the Raptors playing the Grizzlies in the NBA finals. It’s a World Series with the Marlins. It’s 98% of any potential NHL matchups.

The league had no choice though. The Chargers and Chiefs are dogs this year and there is literally no other game on the Week 11 schedule that would be of interest nationally. Maybe Colts-Falcons will be intriguing. And Vikings-Packers could actually mean something if Minnesota keeps up its surprise year (though look at Minny’s schedule and you’ll notice that they’ve played no one through eight weeks and should have a harsh reality coming in the second half of the season). But that NFC North game was moved to 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox to mercifully take the place of Seahawks-49ers, so it likely wasn’t even an option.

The Bengals. We live in a world in which major adjustments have been made in the yearly operation of a football team and a television network just so a Bengals game can be aired nationally. I don’t even know what’s up and what’s down anymore.

This is the first flex since Week 16 of 2013, when the Patriots-Ravens game was flexed out for Bears-Eagles. Last year was flex-free. But the jarring nature of Cincinnati getting moved to primetime got us thinking about other unlikely flex teams, so we went and looked throughout the history of flexing, which began in 2007. Here are the list of teams that have been flexed in and teams that have been flexed out since then. (Since no games are flexed out, we don’t count the undetermined Week 17 slots. Those aren’t flexes, they are NBC picking the winner-take-all game on the schedule. Cincinnati actually played in one of those last year, but we don’t count it as a true flexing because it solely represents a team being in a winner-take-all situation. One year that Week 17 games was the 6-9 Seahawks playing the 7-8 Rams. Case closed. And, yes, we’ve thought way too much about this.)

Well, this isn’t as telling a chart as I’d hoped, though I am quite surprised the New England Patriots lead the list of teams flexed out the most. (And only one came in the year Tom Brady got injured.) This speaks to the fact that New England is always scheduled for a ton of SNF games and its opponents don’t always fulfill their end of the bargain. (It also suggests the Patriots don’t get huge ratings for regular games, e.g. non Brady-Manning games or games against great teams). Notice, only one NFC East team has ever been flexed out (that came in 2013 when the Giants were 2-6 and bumped for a game between the 8-0 Chiefs and 7-1 Broncos). If there were no blockbusters on a day of Cowboys-Redskins Sunday nighter, the NFL would keep it slotted even if both teams were 0-7.

Anyway, Week 11 is November 22, so if ever there was a Sunday to get away from the TV and do something productive, that would be it. Make your plans accordingly. (Don’t worry, FTW’s mobile site will keep you covered while you go apple picking for Thanksgiving apple pies.)