Denver Broncos vs. New England Patriots: TV Broadcast Map (NFL Week 9, CBS)

Update: Most of Arizona has switched from Raiders-Seahawks to Broncos-Patriots.

If you live in a RED area (or are in Alaska or Hawaii) your local CBS station will be playing the Broncos/Patriots game.

If you live in a BLUE area you are getting the Oakland @ Seattle game instead. Yuck! Although do you remember the Oakland/Seahawks preseason game, because that was actually pretty entertaining.

For those of you in the BLUE who don't have DIRECTV's Sunday Ticket or can't stand your local sports bar, I suggest you organize a last minute road trip and drive on over to a RED area. Because who doesn't want to see this game?

I keep seeing two questions about this game:

Why isn't it a primetime game and why are we playing in New England AGAIN?

For the first question - this game was eligible to be "flexed" into primetime. Two Sunday afternoon games from weeks 5-10 can be flexed per season. Why wasn't it? I'm guessing it was a combination of CBS wanting the Manning/Brady ratings and the fact that the currently scheduled Sunday night matchup (Raves/Steelers) is also going to be a really good game. To top it all off the Broncos and Patriots have both had a lot of primetime love in the last few weeks and the Broncos have two more primetime games on their schedule (Chiefs & Bengals) this season.

But why are we always traveling to New England? This question has a handy answer in the form of a previous MHR post.

But here's the real question I have for you think week.

How much do you want to win this one?

In trying to describe to someone how much I want the Broncos to beat the Patriots this weekend (even though I don't think this is a must-win game for the Broncos) I came up with this ridiculousness. If I was a vampire I believe I would be a "good vampire" - a vampire who only snacked on people, leaving them a bit stunned but able to continue on their way. If the Cardinals, Chiefs, and Chargers were my snacks, the Patriots are the team that I confess to my best friend (who is most likely a witch or werewolf) that I accidentally drained. I just couldn't help myself. They just tasted really good.

This is in no way a desire for the Patriots to experience any more injuries - the best victories are those where 'what if ___ was playing' questions aren't asked. I just find myself really, really, really, really, REALLY wanting to win this game on Sunday.

How about you?

The Denver Broncos are 28-20 all-time against the New England Patriots. Kickoff is this Sunday at 2:25PM MT.

Go Broncos!