For the first Thursday since September 1, no NFL game will be played on Thursday night. Even for those fans and media who don’t like Thursday Night Football, it was still NFL football on TV.
I like Thursday games, but I also understand the criticisms of them -- specifically as the criticism relates to player health and safety. The NFL routinely cites that the injury rate is lower on Thursday than it is on Sunday or Monday, but that’s a misleading stat. The question is whether it makes sense for players who are injured or not to play again so quickly after playing on a Sunday.
The NFL Players Association intends to consider the situation in the offseason. With at least one member of the NFLPA executive committee publicly dubbing Thursday Night Football a “poopfest,” there surely will be cries to get rid of it completely. But that’s not realistic, given the revenue generated from the CBS and NBC simulcasts -- and from the subscription fees that NFL Network can charge due to its annual slate of exclusive game action.
An obvious solution would be to ensure that no team that played on a Sunday will play on a Thursday. This would dramatically change the bye-week configuration, with two teams off in Week One -- and in any week preceding a Thursday night game (with the exception of the Thursday after Thanksgiving, when two of the six teams that played on Thanksgiving typically play on Thursday night).
It also would dramatically change the bye-week experience. A team would play on a Sunday and then 11 days later on a Thursday and then 10 days later on a Sunday. No team would get a full 14-day break, along with the separate 10-day break that comes after a Thursday game.
Although the NFL has disputed the notion that the TNF schedule could change, a restriction of the franchise remains possible. The Thursday Night Football games would begin at or about Thanksgiving, and the revenue lost by the reduction in the slate of games would be offset by an expansion of the postseason from 12 to 14 teams.
Regardless of what happens in 2017 and beyond, Thursday Night Football has been an every-week staple in recent years. Love it or hate it, plenty of people will now be missing it.
