Flex Watch — Official Rules

Entry

• Pro-only game — leaderboard glory, no prize. Anyone can read this page, the question board, the tracker, and the leaderboard; making picks requires MockSlate Pro. There is no cash award of any kind.
• Entrants must be 18 or older with a MockSlate account. One entry per person.
• Your entry is created with your first pick. Each question is answered — and locks — on its own schedule (the ladder below); there is no single entry deadline.

How to play

• Each flex-eligible week, call whether the scheduled primetime game holds its slot. If you call flex, name the Sunday-afternoon game (1:00 or 4:05/4:25 window) you think gets flexed in.
• Picks can be changed freely until that question’s lock. Changing a pick resets its submission timestamp — the early-call bonus rewards standing by a call, not editing one.
• You’re predicting the slot, not the matchup — the deliberate inverse of Schedule Release Draft, where you own the matchup wherever it airs, and the same coin as Slot Draft, where you own the window whatever lands in it.

The lock ladder

Each slot locks one day before the earliest date the NFL could announce that flex — you always call it before the league tips its hand. Notice windows are league policy and are re-configured each season if the NFL revises them.

The Thursday window locks a full three weeks out — watch those countdowns early. A week with no game in a slot has no question.

Protected weeks (international games)

The NFL does not flex international games. When an international game occupies a flex-eligible primetime window, that week’s question is protected: it stays visible on the board, takes no picks, and scores no points for anyone. International Sunday-afternoon games are likewise never flexed-in candidates.

Week 18 — the finale

The entire Week 18 slate is scheduled on short notice after Week 17, with one game placed on Sunday night. Calling that game is its own optional question, locked 7 days before the final Sunday — before the league’s announcement window opens. It scores like a flex call: +15 for the exact game (+5 early-call bonus applies).

Scoring

• +5 — correct hold/flex call (did the slot change or not).
• +15 — named the exact game that got flexed in (or the exact Week 18 Sunday-night game).
• +5 — the early-call bonus, for conviction: make your call at least 7 days before that question’s lock and it’s worth +5 extra if you’re right. Editing a pick restarts its clock, so a call only counts as early if you stand by it.
• Season leaderboard; grading runs as real flex decisions are announced and entered. Unanswered questions simply score nothing — there is no penalty and no elimination.

Strategy note

CBS and Fox may each protect one game per week from being flexed — the marquee afternoon matchup you’d most expect to move often can’t. Weighing network protections against fading primetime matchups is the skill this game measures.