cadahnic said:
There are several monday night and regular season games were NFC and AFC play each other the first one that comes to mind is St. Louis vs. Indy, which is a Monday nighter. I dont understand your agument Gwalia
When the league re-aligned in 2002, they looked at including rivalry games on the schedule so that teams like Houston-Dallas, Philadelphia-Pittsburgh, and other rivalries between teams from the two conferences could be played every year. They concluded, however, that it wasn't a fair scheduling format for teams within a division. There were also teams that didn't have a natural rival in the opposite conference. It created complications.
Lets look at Jacksonville and Houston. Right now we play 12 of the same opponents as them, plus one another. The two remaining games are determined by how they finished last season within the AFC South. Jacksonville finished 2nd and Houston finished 3rd. As a result of that Jacksonville plays the 2nd best team (from last year) in the AFC West and AFC East (all 4 teams in the AFC North automatically play all 4 teams in the AFC South this year). Houston plays the 3rd best team in the AFC West and the AFC East this season. This is a fair schedule IMO.
Now lets say that instead of those two AFC record based opponents they had Jacksonville play Miami and Tampa Bay every year, and Houston play Dallas and New Orleans every year to keep rivalries alive. This creates a situation where Houston plays 10 AFC games and 6 NFC games most seasons (not sure what they would do if Dallas or New Orleans would have been on the schedule anyways), and Jacksonville plays 11 AFC games and 5 NFC games most seasons. This isn't an equitable schedule in terms of tiebreakers.
That is why they decided not to do it.