The government shutdown will have major ramifications on the country, but there was certainly one major kink it threw in the plans of many armed forces to watch football this Sunday, with the government announcing the Armed Forces Network would not be active for championship Sunday in the NFL, meaning no NFL playoffs for the troops overseas.

Good news: CBS Sports always had them covered, with the a stream of the Jaguars-Patriots AFC Championship Game available right here. Better news: those that don't have high-speed internet can now watch the game, as well as Vikings-Eagles, as the NFL announced Sunday morning it reached some sort of deal to keep the AFN going for both games. 

Follow the breadcrumbs on this one and it is not difficult to figure out why the NFL would be willing to push for this. Throughout the the 2017 season, the NFL has been attacked by the President of the United States for not taking a stand against players who kneel during the national anthem. 

There are many fans out there who see the kneeling as disrespectful to the troops and, in turn, focus their vitriol arising from the kneeling towards the NFL itself. The last thing the NFL wants is for "THE TROOPS CAN'T WATCH FOOTBALL" headlines to overshadow what has the potential to be two great games on Sunday. (If those headlines get written, they are probably not that generous towards the NFL in various corners of the Internet, even if shutting down the network has nothing to do with the NFL.)

Taking football away from the people overseas fighting for the country? Not a great idea. Sponsors were lining up to help out.

Head to Sarah Sanders Twitter feed (@PressSec) and she is heavily promoting the exciting news as well. Credit the government for making this happen.

But mostly give the NFL credit for doing whatever was necessary to make sure the troops were able to watch football, regardless of the motivation to do so. However this deal went down, it's pretty clear the NFL either stepped in with some leverage or stepped in with some financial input and made this thing happen. Good job, NFL! 

The NFL also opened up GamePass -- which is a great product in the first place -- to make sure there was an alternative for the troops provided by the league itself. 

So now the troops have two choices. They can watch on the AFN or they can watch/stream online. If they're going the latter route, again, I would highly recommend they stream the AFC Championship Game between the Jaguars and Patriots on CBSSports.com. But that's just me.

However they watch, the exciting news is the troops get their football. Now the government can go back to worrying about other stuff, like why it's completely shutdown.