Here’s a fun Sunday night tradition: Set your DVR for 9 p.m. to catch Tracker, sit down with your snacks, and then – surprise! – you’re watching the tail end of 60 Minutes instead because some NFL game went into overtime. Again. Look, I get it. Football is king. But CBS has turned Sunday night into a scheduling nightmare that’s been driving viewers absolutely nuts, and honestly? It’s time we talked about why this keeps happening.

It’s Always the Football (Obviously)

The culprit here isn’t exactly a mystery. CBS has NFL broadcast rights, and football games don’t care about your carefully planned viewing schedule. They run long. Like, almost always. Overtime happens, commercial breaks stretch, and suddenly that game that was supposed to wrap up at 7:30 is still going strong at 8:15.

And here’s where it gets messy. Because 60 Minutes – that venerable Sunday institution – always follows the football game. Not at a set time, mind you. Whenever the game ends. Which means if kickoff started late or the game goes long (and let’s be real, it does), 60 Minutes starts late. And when 60 Minutes starts late, everything else falls like dominoes.

So Marshals (Luke Grimes’ Yellowstone spinoff, for those keeping track) was supposed to start at 8 p.m.? Try 8:47. Tracker with Justin Hartley solving mysteries at 9? More like 9:43. Watson at 10? You’re probably looking at nearly 11 before that one kicks off. And if you’re on the East Coast trying to watch live TV on a work night, well, good luck with that. That's especially rough timing given Marshals' already-shocking season 2 premiere has fans glued to their screens waiting to see what happens.

But Wait, There’s More

The thing is, it’s not even just football. During Tracker’s first season, the show got bumped around like a pinball because of March Madness and – I’m not making this up – the CMT Music Awards. At some point you have to wonder if CBS just schedules these shows on Sunday nights knowing full well they’re going to be preempted half the time.

So Why Does CBS Keep Doing This?

I mean, the answer is pretty straightforward. Money. Ratings. The NFL is basically a license to print cash, and 60 Minutes is one of the longest-running shows in television history. They’re not moving either of those.

But here’s what’s actually kind of wild – despite all these delays, despite the scheduling chaos, despite making it nearly impossible for people to know when their shows will actually air, Tracker still became the most-watched broadcast premiere since Mark Harmon’s final episode of NCIS back in September 2021. We’re talking 18.2 million viewers per episode on average. That’s… actually pretty impressive.

Which tells you something about how starved people are for decent broadcast TV these days. They’ll put up with not knowing when their show starts, they’ll adjust their DVRs on the fly, they’ll stay up past their bedtime on a Sunday night – all because they want to watch Justin Hartley do his thing.

The Streaming Alternative Nobody’s Talking About

Now, CBS does have Paramount+ where you can stream these shows, usually the next day. And that’s probably their actual strategy here, right? Make the live broadcast just annoying enough that people think “screw it, I’ll just watch it tomorrow on streaming.” It’s cynical, but it kind of makes sense from a business perspective.

The problem is that a lot of viewers – especially the ones who are still watching broadcast TV in 2026 – actually want to watch live. They want to participate in the real-time conversation on social media, avoid spoilers, feel like they’re part of the communal viewing experience. And CBS is basically telling those people, “Yeah, we can’t actually tell you when your show will air. Check back during the football game, maybe?”

“At some point, you have to respect your audience enough to give them a predictable schedule – or just admit you’re prioritizing live sports over scripted programming.”

What This Actually Means for Sunday Night TV

Look, I don’t have a solution here that doesn’t involve CBS either ditching Sunday night dramas entirely (which they won’t do because Tracker’s numbers are too good) or somehow convincing the NFL to end games on a precise schedule (which, good luck with that). But the current situation is basically training viewers that broadcast TV scheduling is meaningless. CBS also leans heavily on hits like Fire Country, where Max Thieriot's dual role as star and creator keeps the ratings strong enough that the network isn't budging on scheduling either.

And maybe that’s fine! Maybe we’re in the last gasp of the “shows air at specific times” era anyway, and this is just the messy transition period. But for now, if you’re planning your Sunday night around CBS shows, my advice is simple: Don’t. Set your DVR with a generous buffer, check Twitter to see when things actually start, or just wait and stream it the next day.

Because CBS has made it pretty clear – they’re not changing their football schedule for your scripted dramas. No matter how good those dramas are.