Act I: The 5-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers duck under Ford Field’s roof and battle the 4-2 Detroit Lions. It’s a pairing of reigning division winners and second-chance quarterbacks.

Act II: The Houston Texans, once dangling off the cliff but now winners of two straight, square up with the white-hot Seahawks in Seattle. Two worthwhile games are splitting and extending one prime-time slot.

That’s right, it’s another NFL week sealed off by multiple “Monday Night Football” broadcasts. Unlike the last time around, these Monday kickoffs are separated by a full three hours. It all but eliminates TV overlap, but it extends the action past midnight on the East Coast.

Week 7 MNF viewing guide

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GameTime (ET)TVStream

Buccaneers at Lions

7 p.m.

ABC, ESPN

Texans at Seahawks

10 p.m.

ESPN

ABC is available free over the air. All ABC and ESPN content streams on ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer service.

Why MNF (sometimes) has doubleheaders

The NFL’s 2021 television rights deal increased the number of games on ABC/ESPN (both part of The Walt Disney Company). This year, that includes 23 regular-season games and two more in the postseason. There are only 18 weeks in a season, and ABC/ESPN only does Monday nights (until Saturday in Week 18), so there wasn’t much else to do for resolution here.

Some MNF doubleheaders run one after another, like this week. Others, like in Week 6, run concurrently — one game exclusively on ABC and the other on ESPN. It’s still new, as the stacked broadcast format began late in the 2023 season.

There are perceived benefits and problems with each format. The back-to-back arrangement lets fans focus on one game at a time and avoid split-screen overstimulation. It does mean that the second game starts rather late for viewers out east.

The overlapping setup avoids an after-midnight finish for those fans, and it gives the main MNF window two chances at landing a hit. It also requires a more attentive viewer, and it potentially bifurcates the audience if both offerings are close. That was case last Monday, when the Atlanta Falcons upset Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills, while Caleb Williams led the Chicago Bears to a triumphant last-second win over the Washington Commanders. Apparently, that A/B testing is part of the plan.

“We’re going to learn more about what optimizes best,” ESPN president of content Burke Magnus told The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch in 2023. “The thought there is, can we combine total audience and do a little bit like we used to do in the old days of college football where we create a simultaneous national and regional appeal and use our networks to do that in a single window? Then it combines to sort of like a super audience total number.”

Because of the busyness of two games at once, there is no “ManningCast” this week.

Buccaneers at Lions

We have enough offense here to cover the whole national audience. It’s an all-around awesome matchup. Tampa Bay entered Week 7 ranking sixth in points per game at 27.5, with Detroit second at 31.8. Baker Mayfield looks like an MVP candidate for the Bucs. Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown are the leading touchdown talliers for the Lions. The visitors risk their 3-0 road record; the hosts have started 2-0 in their rowdy indoor den. Amid a year marked by confusion and crowdedness for the bulk of the league, these teams combine for a clean 9-3 record. We don’t know a lot right now, but we know that these two warrant the hype.

Tampa has been especially impressive in its discipline and pacing. Todd Bowles must be giddy seeing his team commit just two (2!) total turnovers in six NFL games. The hard-scrambled Mayfield is best when he can get the ball out quickly and cook beyond the pocket. He also leads all QBs with four game-winning drives already (halfway to the single-season record of eight, shared by Matthew Stafford and Kirk Cousins). One of those heroic efforts came on the first “Monday Night Football” doubleheader of 2025, when he scorched the Texans defense with a last-minute 80-yard TD sequence.

To Mayfield and the crew’s chagrin, this week’s injury report is the size and scope of a Cheesecake Factory menu. RB Bucky Irving (shoulder and foot) and WR Chris Godwin Jr. (fibula) are out with injuries. Fellow playmakers Emeka Egbuka (hamstring) and Mike Evans (hamstring) are expected to be game-time decisions, while inveterate linebacker and longtime captain Lavonte David is also having trouble with his knee.

Beating the Dan Campbell-led Lions in Detroit is a tough task on any given week. Doing so shorthanded is its own odyssey. Like the Bucs, these Lions benefit from extra possessions (three turnovers to nine takeaways). They came into the week ranked first in passing scores and third in rushing ones, and they have enjoyed the best average starting field position in the league. Like most of the past half-decade, reads have been consolidated and simplified for Jared Goff.

The pass rush is better this year, too, and boasts one of the league’s best sack rates. Aidan Hutchinson is a party crasher off the edge; his six sacks and four forced fumbles top Kelvin Sheppard’s deep defense. Surprise 30-year-old breakout Al-Quadin Muhammad has added 4.5 sacks of his own. The secondary needs all the coverage bodies it can get. Terrion Arnold (shoulder), Kerby Joseph (knee), Avonte Maddox (hamstring) and Brian Branch (suspension) are unavailable Monday.

Bucs-Lions is on ABC, so it merits the primary broadcast team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. This game will also air on ESPN, but that channel will flip to the nightcap at 10 p.m. ET.

Texans at Seahawks

The follow-up gives Houston a chance to erase its opening struggles and for Seattle to assert itself in its competitive division. The Texans looked all sorts of off in Weeks 1-3. Their offense was stifled and the collective energy was flat. But things are reshuffling upward for DeMeco Ryans’ squad right now, after a 26-0 shutout of the Tennessee Titans and a 44-10 thumping of the Baltimore Ravens (sans Lamar Jackson, of course). C.J. Stroud was near-perfect in that last outing, completing 23 of 27 passes for four touchdowns. H-Town reached the end zone in four of its five red zone tries. Jalen Pitre set things up with a pair of picks.

Ryans is a defense-first coach by trade. Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter are top-tier pass rushers in isolation and a nightmare hydra as a tandem. After some September shakiness, Houston’s defense found itself No. 1 in points allowed per game and No. 4 in yards given up by mid-October.

CB1 Derek Stingley Jr. has the toughest of assignments, going up against Stroud’s former college teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Seattle’s top wideout hits Week 7 as the NFL leader in total receiving and, per NFL’s Next Gen Stats, share of team air yards. JSN has found a connection with Sam Darnold on vertical routes, and his last two stat lines are silly: 8/162/1 TD against the Jacksonville Jaguars; 8/132/1 TD versus the Bucs.

Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald’s sophomore season has been sharp on all sides. Both the scoring offense and scoring defense rank in the top 10. The Seahawks’ two losses came by seven combined points, and their famously loud home crowd is on full tilt for the latest iteration of fluorescent neon football.

Texans-Seahawks is on ESPN, and it has the secondary broadcast team of Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky and Louis Riddick.

The full MNF doubleheader schedule

Here are the MNF two-parters for 2025, all times ET:

Week 2 (Monday, Sept. 15)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20, Houston Texans 19
Los Angeles Chargers 20, Las Vegas Raiders 9

Week 4 (Monday, Sept. 29)
Miami Dolphins 27, New York Jets 21
Denver Broncos 28, Cincinnati Bengals 3

Week 6 (Monday, Oct. 13)
Atlanta Falcons 24, Buffalo Bills 14
Chicago Bears 25, Washington Commanders 24

Week 7 (Monday, Oct. 20)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Detroit Lions: 7 p.m., ABC and ESPN
Houston Texans at Seattle Seahawks: 10 p.m., ESPN only

Week 18 (Saturday, Jan. 3)
TBD: 4:30 p.m., ABC and ESPN
TBD: 8 p.m., ABC and ESPN

Updated MNF odds

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