Much has been said over the past day regarding the contention from Commissioner Roger Goodell that Thursday night football is actually better than football played on other days of the week. Not as good as football played on other days of the week (which I’ve tried to argue from time to time -- my gold star from the league office must have gotten lost in the mail), but actually better.
Here’s how it came to be. Colin Cowherd, while interviewing Goodell on Wednesday, framed the question from the ridiculous, Tom-Brady-could-be-dumped-by-the-Patriots perspective that Thursday football is better, and Goodell agreed.
“A three-sport star,” Cowherd said of Goodell in what the radio people call a reset, “a captain [of] all three teams but an injury kept you out of playing football at the college level and I want to talk about that. Because Thursday night games, we did a study on our show, and we found that there are fewer penalties on Thursday and the completion percentages are higher on Thursday so I don’t buy the media narrative that it’s bad football. I do not.
“We have looked up efficiency stats, and they’re better than the league average. However, the optics are from veteran players that safety matters, and a lot of veteran players have said on Thursday, ‘Some old guys wake up still sore.’ We know that [the] football’s not as bad. We’ve looked it up. We do think the games are pretty darn good, but we do worry about the optics for veteran players. That has to be something you at least are talking about, right?”
“Of course, Colin, but you know we’re more than just optics here,” Goodell said. “We’re into facts. So go to the same statistics. Because you’re right about the quality of the games on Thursday night. There are actually less penalties, less turnovers. Almost by every barometer, the quality of the game is better on Thursday night.”
So that’s the full context, for anyone who may be inclined to suggest that, for example, it’s unfair to suggest that Cowherd demeaned all players who have real safety concerns about short-week football by claiming that the issue boils down to, ‘Some old guys wake up still sore.’”
The safety issue is much bigger than soreness. It’s about properly recovering from 60 minutes of controlled car accidents after only three full days off before engaging in another 60 minutes of controlled car accidents. As one league source explained it to me last night, many players devote countless hours from Monday to Saturday in order to be play again on Sunday. Compressing that process makes it harder to be ready -- and the extra damage from a second game only four days apart takes even more time to heal. (Goodell later mentioned that some players like the “mini-bye” on the back end, which plenty of them definitely do.)
Apart from the safety issues, the idea that the games are better is simply ludicrous. It calls into question the overall credibility of anyone who would suggest that with a straight face. (There’s been a lot that going on, it seems, since last Friday.)
Consider the question of the day at the PFT Twitter page. As of this posting, more than 5,100 have responded. A whopping 93 percent believe that Thursday football is not better than football on other days.
Goodell, Cowherd, and anyone else inclined to make the argument that Thursday night football is actually better should just. Stop. Now. It’s revealing much more about you than you should ever want to reveal, to anyone at any time.
