Vegas must have gone crazy trying to pick NFL favorites the past few weeks.

Thirteen of the past 15 games were determined by a touchdown or less, and week to week it's getting harder and harder to figure out who's really good in the NFL. Six of the top 10 teams lost last Sunday, and this week has already started off with an upset -- the Bills beating the Jaguars on Thursday night.

	Even with Emmitt Smith, last Monday's Redskins-Cowboys game was tough to watch.

Of course, odds are for amusement only, but the real gambling is being done by the television networks. In early spring, network executives must barter over the marquee games with no certain knowledge on which teams will be strong and which won't.

And the stakes go up next year. Rights fees soar from $2.1 billion to $2.47 billion, and there is a contract re-opener for the final four years in which the struggling networks may ask for either relief or help. Ad revenues are down.

But from the fans' standpoint, what's good for the networks is good for them, because all the fans care about is seeing the best games at the best time of the year. Flexible schedules, the bane of general managers and coaches, may be one of the solutions next year. Unless David Hill of Fox becomes a salary cap expert, it may be the only way for anyone to sort out the future of teams.

Think about it. Look at what happened in the past month. The Super Bowl champion Ravens were upset by the Bengals and carved up by Brett Favre. The Broncos went from invincible to struggling with worries about Brian Griese's newest shoulder injury and losses of offensive leaders Terrell Davis, Ed McCaffrey and Howard Griffith. The Titans, many experts' Super Bowl pick, is 1-3 and one Brad Johnson pass from being 0-4. The Vikings are one Johnson pass from being 1-4, and if Johnson could've gotten that last-second pass into the end zone, the Buccaneers wouldn't be .500.

A month is an eternity, so projecting half-filled rosters into legitimate playoff contenders in April is a crap shoot. I was fortunate enough to hit enough camps to see Favre light it up to establish that the Packers were for real and that the 49ers looked more mature and athletic on offense to be an NFC playoff threat. But that was in August. Imagine doing that in April. Heck, I can't tell you yet if the Titans, Steelers, Browns or Bengals are the second-best AFC Central team behind the Ravens.

My money is on the Titans ... but of course, I don't bet.

Here's how flexible schedules would work. The final month of the season would list the weekly 15 games without differentiating the Sunday night or Monday night games. By Nov. 1, the networks would have their draft and prioritize the schedule. The NFL would rotate the seedings for the four networks to pick their games over the final four weeks, ABC getting the first choice one week, Fox the next, etc.

The only inconvenience to the fans would be the uncertainty of whether one home game could go from Sunday afternoon to Monday night, but at least there would be a month of planning for the regional teams on the east coast. Cities such as Buffalo might have difficulty, but if there were a huge Monday night game, they'd sell out. They would have a month or so to adjust their schedule.

Hill of Fox said he would fight such an arrangement because he doesn't want his network to lose potential quality games. No network wants to lose games that draw ratings, but wouldn't it make sense for each network to be able to showcase the league's best games each week?

After all, colleges have flexible schedules. Most good schools aren't guaranteed the start times of their Saturday games as they wait to see what television does with them. Of course, in college, the good schools usually stay good and the marquee teams usually draw the best ratings.

Thanks to the salary cap, NFL greatness is fleeting. Remember, the NFL has only had one repeat division champion in the past five years. Only one -- the Jaguars -- and you see what the cap has done to them recently. The Ravens went to the Super Bowl last year and won with a defense that is the most fun to watch since the Steelers of the 1970s and the Bears of 1985. Yet they couldn't make the prime-time games last year because no one in the networks picked the Ravens to be one of the most improved teams in 2000.

Those against creating flexible December schedules say the solution is to schedule playoff teams on Monday night. It's a point to consider because the bad Monday night games of this year have involved non-playoff teams. The Redskins and Cowboys weren't playoff teams, and scheduling them was goofy. The Rams-Lions game was tainted. However, the Lions didn't make the playoffs, and turnover in the front office knocked them down further.

	No network wants to lose games that draw ratings, but wouldn't it make sense for each network to be able to showcase the league's best games each week?

But CBS or Fox likely never would allow ABC or ESPN the chance to get playoff teams from the previous year to load up their prime-time schedules.

The salary cap makes each offseason a torture for teams. Good teams try to squeeze their roster under the cap, and the longer the success, the less the team is able to squeeze through the cap.

What CBS, which shows the AFC, has to worry about is that the seven teams farthest over next year's cap are in its conference.

Look at what happened to the top seven teams over last year's cap: Their combined records are 12-22, and the only team with a winning record is San Francisco, which needed a couple years of tight budgeting. The Chiefs, Jaguars, Bills, Cowboys, Titans and Vikings couldn't do a lot of building in the offseason because their mission was to keep some of their top young players.

Here are next year's top seven -- the Jaguars, Ravens, Titans, Jets, Raiders, Dolphins and Broncos. What these teams have to do to get under the cap will first determine if they have a chance to stay among the AFC's elite. Sure, each will get under the cap, but will they be able to add talent to their roster? Again, can anyone at CBS really figure out the roster dynamics of these seven teams to determine the hierarchy for the 2002 season? Probably not. It's hard enough figuring out this year. And don't forget, owners will vote to accept a new collective bargaining extension at the end of the month.

Maybe this will help these teams. Maybe the new CBA will hurt. Remember that the NFL is always trying to change rules to help the worst teams and give the fans a chance to enjoy the playoffs.

A flexible schedule is the one answer to show the NFL's new hot teams. If the Bears are one, you'd like the chance to see Brian Urlacher in December. If the 49ers are hot, how about seeing Jeff Garcia throwing to Terrell Owens? And you can never get enough of Favre, so if he's going to clinch his fourth MVP trophy, then let's see him in December.

Flexibility is the one way to do that next year.

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.