Thoughts OnThe Current NFL Weekly Game Schedule - Thur - Sun - Sun Night - Monday Games? (1 Viewer)

[Joe Bryant]

Was thinking today how after initially resisting, I've grown to love the current weekly lineup of Thursday Night, Sunday Afternoon, Sunday Night and Monday Night for the NFL schedule. Feels like just the right pace. 

But wondering what you thought. Let's hear it. Please leave a comment for how well you like the current setup and also let us know additional thoughts. 

And to be clear, this is just about the days of the week schedule. Not that you don't like the platform for broadcasts or you can't get ESPN for MNF or your team doesn't get enough night games or stuff like that. 

Let's hear it. 

 

[shadyridr]

Hate Thursday Night games.

 

[TheWinz]

No reason for Thursday night games.  Players take a beating and over time their bodies grow accustomed to getting those days off to recover.  I doubt the players like Thursday either.  I would much rather just tune in on Sunday afternoon and start the football week.  I do like the Monday night games though.

Also, you did not ask, but I hate the overseas games.  Each team should get 8 home games.  Home field advantage is huge.

 

[billrob]

I also don't care much for Thursday night games.  Week 1 and Thanksgiving are fine, but every week is too much.  Unfortunately the NFL has beaten us over the head with their product so much that if they called off Thursday games now we would miss them.  I think teams should never play on 4 days of rest and if they do play Thursday it's after their bye week.

What I have grown to love being in the eastern time zone are the 9am Sunday games.  Don't care much about London and it would be impossible to manage if those games were state-side, but football at 9am...what's better than that?

I would say one improvement would be to move Thursday games to prime time on Saturday nights instead.  I'm sure they would be worried about splitting with the college fans, but would make for better games and an entire weekend of football. 

 

[Gally]

I like that there is a game on Thursday because it is another night of football.   However, the games usually stink and it is an unnecessary risk for injuries and lesser play because recovery time and game planning are cut short so the quality of the product suffers.  I would have no issue if it went away. 

I would actually prefer having two Monday night games.  One east coast centric for an early start and then the west coast centric for the late start games.  I would rather have them get rid of the Thursday game and go to two Monday games if they want to keep the same number of prime time games.  Heck, even a Saturday Night game would  probably lead to better quality of play than the Thursday game. 

 

[Gally]

I also don't care much for Thursday night games.  Week 1 and Thanksgiving are fine, but every week is too much.  Unfortunately the NFL has beaten us over the head with their product so much that if they called off Thursday games now we would miss them.  I think teams should never play on 4 days of rest and if they do play Thursday it's after their bye week.

What I have grown to love being in the eastern time zone are the 9am Sunday games.  Don't care much about London and it would be impossible to manage if those games were state-side, but football at 9am...what's better than that?

I would say one improvement would be to move Thursday games to prime time on Saturday nights instead.  I'm sure they would be worried about splitting with the college fans, but would make for better games and an entire weekend of football. 

Move to the west coast.  It's like that every week and is great. 

 

[rschroeder1]

The Thursday night games are too much - it's football overload.  Sunday afternoon isn't as special when football is more widely available.  However, I know some people disagree with me on that one.

I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but it sucks for fantasy purposes to have to start a player on Thursday night because a Sunday player is questionable.

Perhaps more can agree on this - the bigger problem to me is what the NFL defines as a "marquee" game.  We don't need to see the Cowboys seven times a year, as they generally aren't all that good.  Likewise, any NFC East game is not some monumental matchup.  I really do not need to watch another Giants game, period.

Practically every intradivisional matchup in the NFC South is a good game.  They are generally ignored for even the late Sunday afternoon slots.  Just give us good football!

 

[steelers1080]

Thursday night games put players at more risk, usually put out a poor product, and over saturate the week with football. I love football, and as such I want to watch the Thursday night game, but I just don't have enough time in the week to watch football all sunday and monday night and thursday night. Ratings are dropping, I think it's partly because people don't want 3 days of football a week. 

 

[Doug B]

Dislike Thursday games for the reasons others have stated. The only time I watch Thursday night is when the Saints are playing. Maybe when I was single and casting about for things to do on weeknights, Thursday Night football would be more appealing to me.

For fantasy purposes, I also dislike the condensed down-time during the week -- don't like having to consider lineups and such mid-week. It also pushed the waivers up a day to Tuesday. I'm sure most don't care about that, but for me FFB was most comfortable as a pick-up/put-down hobby with an easy-to-maintain weekly rhythm.

 

[Man In The Box]

I also have grown to hate having a Thursday night game every week. I really liked it at first, but it’s become too much. Life has gotten busy and I’d prefer there not to be a game every Thursday. I’d be ok if there were a few sprinkled in during the season (and of course Thanksgiving). 

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

I also don't care much for Thursday night games.  Week 1 and Thanksgiving are fine, but every week is too much.  Unfortunately the NFL has beaten us over the head with their product so much that if they called off Thursday games now we would miss them.  I think teams should never play on 4 days of rest and if they do play Thursday it's after their bye week.

What I have grown to love being in the eastern time zone are the 9am Sunday games.  Don't care much about London and it would be impossible to manage if those games were state-side, but football at 9am...what's better than that?

I would say one improvement would be to move Thursday games to prime time on Saturday nights instead.  I'm sure they would be worried about splitting with the college fans, but would make for better games and an entire weekend of football. 

All of this. Except for the part where I would miss TNF.

Move the games to either Friday or Saturday night. Personally I'd prefer SNF - of course I understand why the networks (all of whom have NCAA FB TV contracts as well) have shied away from it - but I've never understood why their fallback has been Thursday instead of Friday. What's the conflict there? High-school football? Please.

I don't mind the London games, but I could do without a 9.30am kickoff. Move it back a couple hours and you get it closer to prime time in London, make it more palatable for those in the Pacific and Mountain time zones here, and you'd be able to show second-half highlights on Red Zone. Win-win-win.

 

[-OZ-]

No reason for Thursday night games.  Players take a beating and over time their bodies grow accustomed to getting those days off to recover.  I doubt the players like Thursday either.  I would much rather just tune in on Sunday afternoon and start the football week.  I do like the Monday night games though.

Also, you did not ask, but I hate the overseas games.  Each team should get 8 home games.  Home field advantage is huge.

Pretty much my thoughts. 

The only way I'd want to see Thursday night continued is if both teams playing get a bye week the previous week. Give both teams 11 days between games instead of the 4. 

 

[Murph]

Thursday Night Football is worse than genocide. MNF isn't much better. Would like to see more Saturday games.

 

[-OZ-]

All of this. Except for the part where I would miss TNF.

Move the games to either Friday or Saturday night. Personally I'd prefer SNF - of course I understand why the networks (all of whom have NCAA FB TV contracts as well) have shied away from it - but I've never understood why their fallback has been Thursday instead of Friday. What's the conflict there? High-school football? Please.

I don't mind the London games, but I could do without a 9.30am kickoff. Move it back a couple hours and you get it closer to prime time in London, make it more palatable for those in the Pacific and Mountain time zones here, and you'd be able to show second-half highlights on Red Zone. Win-win-win.

I'll take it you don't live in the south. Or at least not Florida, Texas or Alabama. 

 

[Tejas]

Love it! Would also like to see a Friday Night Lights theme for the NFL. 

 

[Ilov80s]

It is all good except for the Thursday Night game. I am not a fan. Also, I dislike how 1:00 Sunday has like 8 games and then the afternoon slate has 3. 

 

[TheDirtyWord]

For me, TNF kind of kicks off the weekend 'mentality'...so it's nice to have that event there.

With Sat/Sun and the great slate of games and then MNF after that first day back to work...it's almost as if the final 4 months of the year just fly by,

 

[Ilov80s]

For me, TNF kind of kicks off the weekend 'mentality'...so it's nice to have that event there.

With Sat/Sun and the great slate of games and then MNF after that first day back to work...it's almost as if the final 4 months of the year just fly by,

I like the idea of it. However the games go so late so I am dead on Friday (I have to get up at 5:50 for work, games end like midnight). Also,  it sucks for fantasy. If gets dropped for waivers Wednesday and they play TH, they aren't available to get added that week. 

 

[Franknbeans]

I think way back when they were rolling out the Thursdya night games, they only had a few weeks at the end of the season.  I like that much better and I bet the players would, too.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I've never liked Thursday Night Football. 

I think the games are generally sloppy, players seem to get hurt with greater frequency, and other than being a money grab for the NFL, I generally don’t see the point to it. 

We’ve had a few good TNF games. We’ve also had a bunch of absolute trash games. 

While it’s a prime-time event, they sure seem to get the dregs of the schedule. HOU/MIA? I can’t see how anyone looked at that game and said “now THIS is a marquis matchup to show the world our product on national television!”

but it’s football, and so I watch it. And occasuonally an unexpectedly good game will break out. 

But overall I think it’s a pox upon the sport. 

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I think way back when they were rolling out the Thursdya night games, they only had a few weeks at the end of the season.  I like that much better and I bet the players would, too.

IIRC it used to only be thanksgiving. 

And that was always Lions/Cowboys

then they expanded it to 3 games on TG and I was ok with it. 

Then didn’t they try to make Saturday Night Football a thing for a little while at the end of the seasons?

and then they made TNF a regular thing. 

Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly but I think that’s how it went down. 

 

[Gally]

IIRC it used to only be thanksgiving. 

And that was always Lions/Cowboys

then they expanded it to 3 games on TG and I was ok with it. 

Then didn’t they try to make Saturday Night Football a thing for a little while at the end of the seasons?

and then they made TNF a regular thing. 

Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly but I think that’s how it went down. 

As long as I can remember they went to a Saturday night game once the college season ended and was between bowl games starting.  Then the networks would have football.  It's usually just a couple Saturday's in December around the holidays.  I actually like those.  It's not overkill unless it's on top of all the Thursday games and then more than one Saturday game during that time. 

 

[rzrback77]

Like many others, I do not like the Thursday night game. That one game brings about all of these negative impacts:

1. Very difficult on the players and for the game to remain great, those guys have to be all in
   
2. Forces a lot of fantasy decisions to be made (or at least considered much earlier)
   
3. Forces many to reduce family time for football
   

 

[menobrown]

Love it and wish we had more nights.

One of easiest business decisions the NFL ever made and stunning really it took them so long to realize it did not make sense to have your product overlap and air up to 88% of your available games in a 6 hour window.  Going forward the NFL does not need to add more games to increase revenue, they just need to continue to spread out the product.

Look at tonight's game as an example. If this game was Sunday it would be the noon CST time slot and in a normal week would be one of 7-9 noon games. Would be one of the least watched noon games, only people who would care is Titans/Dolphins fans and scattering of people with fantasy/gambling interests who might check into he game from time to time. But when it's the only show in town like it is tonight it likely will be the most watched show on TV.

What I'll never understand is hardcore football fans who actually don't like Thursday Night Football. Just don't get it at all why you would not like to be able to devote your entire attention to one game that you'd otherwise barely know was being played if it was in the heavy Sunday schedule. Makes no sense and makes me think people just like to complain for the sake of complaining.

 

[[scooter]]

Was thinking today how after initially resisting, I've grown to love the current weekly lineup of Thursday Night, Sunday Afternoon, Sunday Night and Monday Night for the NFL schedule. Feels like just the right pace. 

But wondering what you thought. Let's hear it. Please leave a comment for how well you like the current setup and also let us know additional thoughts. 

And to be clear, this is just about the days of the week schedule. Not that you don't like the platform for broadcasts or you can't get ESPN for MNF or your team doesn't get enough night games or stuff like that. 

Let's hear it. 

I think Thursday Night Football is a great idea in concept. But the NFL has botched the execution.

- should be on a major network, not NFL network (they finally fixed this)

- should have top-tier announcing team (haven't really fixed this yet)

- should feature teams coming off a BYE

- should feature more prominent matchups

- should get rid of the color rush crap (or, in the very least, they should limit the color rush stuff to teams that can actually pull it off. None of this mango Dolphin stuff.)

 

[Gally]

Love it and wish we had more nights.

One of easiest business decisions the NFL ever made and stunning really it took them so long to realize it did not make sense to have your product overlap and air up to 88% of your available games in a 6 hour window.  Going forward the NFL does not need to add more games to increase revenue, they just need to continue to spread out the product.

Look at tonight's game as an example. If this game was Sunday it would be the noon CST time slot and in a normal week would be one of 7-9 noon games. Would be one of the least watched noon games, only people who would care is Titans/Dolphins fans and scattering of people with fantasy/gambling interests who might check into he game from time to time. But when it's the only show in town like it is tonight it likely will be the most watched show on TV.

What I'll never understand is hardcore football fans who actually don't like Thursday Night Football. Just don't get it at all why you would not like to be able to devote your entire attention to one game that you'd otherwise barely know was being played if it was in the heavy Sunday schedule. Makes no sense and makes me think people just like to complain for the sake of complaining.

I think the majority of the comments here have less to do with their being another prime time game and more to do with the quality of the product because it's on Thursday (less rest, recoup time, prep time, etc).  Fans want a quality product.....not just another night of a crappy game.  If there was a way to improve the product for the Thursday game without adding additional injury risk due to less recovery/prep time I don't have any doubt that everyone would be happy to have a Thursday night game.   The real issue is the product is suffering because of it.

 

[Steve Tasker]

I'm not really one to complain about more football on TV so in that sense, I don't really dislike TNF. 

That said, I never watch it unless the Bills are playing in the game.  Due to the uniqueness of TNF and requiring every team to play a TNF game, there are just so many games that I just don't care to watch.  Factor in the short rest time from Sunday games and the quality of play isn't at the same standard as Sunday/Monday.  I don't play fantasy football anymore, so no impact there.  For me, it's a matter of simply having better things to do (personal preference) instead of sitting down to watch TNF.

SNF and MNF are so ingrained in football culture at this point that they are fine.  There's a certain cachet that comes along with an SNF or MNF game.

For the record I much prefer college football over the NFL.  I would rather watch two mid-major crap teams instead of watching an average NFL game.  I am significantly more likely to watch two college teams that I know nothing about on a Thursday rather than two middling NFL teams.

 

[Man In The Box]

What I'll never understand is hardcore football fans who actually don't like Thursday Night Football. Just don't get it at all why you would not like to be able to devote your entire attention to one game that you'd otherwise barely know was being played if it was in the heavy Sunday schedule. Makes no sense and makes me think people just like to complain for the sake of complaining.

I’m just one guy, but this used to be me. When I was younger and single and didn’t have kids. Now, it’s just too much. I don’t have the spare time to devote every Thursday night to 3 and a half hours to watch another football game. It’s just not feasible for me anymore. I don’t think this is complaining just for the sake of complaining. It’s just life 

 

[menobrown]

I think the majority of the comments here have less to do with their being another prime time game and more to do with the quality of the product because it's on Thursday (less rest, recoup time, prep time, etc).  Fans want a quality product.....not just another night of a crappy game.  If there was a way to improve the product for the Thursday game without adding additional injury risk due to less recovery/prep time I don't have any doubt that everyone would be happy to have a Thursday night game.   The real issue is the product is suffering because of it.

There have been multiple studies which show there is no increased injury risk. Can be debated if the product suffers, some horrible TNF games we've seen and some great one's, just like Sunday.

Here is the thing. If you don't like Thursday Night don't watch it. Take a game like tonight as an example. If this game was in the Sunday mixer most people would not watch the game anyway.

 

[Lionsfan011]

No reason for Thursday night games.  Players take a beating and over time their bodies grow accustomed to getting those days off to recover.  I doubt the players like Thursday either.  I would much rather just tune in on Sunday afternoon and start the football week.  I do like the Monday night games though.

Also, you did not ask, but I hate the overseas games.  Each team should get 8 home games.  Home field advantage is huge.

Seconded.

 

[nittanylion]

Can't stand Thursday Night Football for all reasons mentioned above.

Football players who make it to the elite level are groomed from prep through college, on into the pros, to be creatures of habit who thrive on structure and routine. Thursday night games are disruptive, and I think the negative effects are noticeable. Proceeding from what someone mentioned above, I think that the ideal way to go about scheduling Thursday night games would be to have 4 Teams on bye each week, and have 2 games on Thursday night, featuring the Teams coming out of the bye, for 8 weeks in the middle of the Season, Weeks 5-12...but, at least to me, that makes too much sense, so...

My ideal schedule would be:

6 games at 1:00 pm Sunday

6 games at 4:00 pm Sunday

2 games at 8:00 pm Sunday, or at 7 and 10

2 games at 8:00 pm Monday , or at 7 and 10

I think we can all agree that there's nothing wrong with a nice, tight little package...

 

[Bronco Billy]

Hate it.  I understand what the NFL is trying to do by invading multiple prime time opportunities.  However, I believe they have diluted their brand substantially as well as invoking a lot of ill will.

Sundays used to be special.  Watch the two flights of games with buddies on Sunday and then still be home for Sunday dinner and spending Sunday evening with the family.  Then MNF, which also was a special treat.  Now the NFL intrudes on family time 3 nights a week as well as Saturdays towards the end of the season.  That’s just too much cutting into leisure time, and games just aren’t special anymore.  

I used to watch games between teams that I really had no rooting interest in because the games were an event.  Now I pretty much only watch GB play, and have even stopped that with the ridiculous rule changes and obvious mistakes in officiating that negatively affect outcomes.  That’s a whole different topic, but the main point is that the NFL has almost completely lost a guy who used to look forward to spending Sunday with my buddies every week of the season.  I don’t think I’m the only one who has lost such a significant amount of interest.

Add in the officiating angle and the influx of political statements into games and I don’t see how this ends well for the NFL.  I can fix my jones for football at high school games and watching select college games.  The NFL is just not a good product any longer in my opinion, and the fact that it is on so much more only makes me dislike it that much more.

 

[menobrown]

I’m just one guy, but this used to be me. When I was younger and single and didn’t have kids. Now, it’s just too much. I don’t have the spare time to devote every Thursday night to 3 and a half hours to watch another football game. It’s just not feasible for me anymore. I don’t think this is complaining just for the sake of complaining. It’s just life 

I don't live in world that requires me to spend 3.5 hours watching a game but then I don't watch live TV either very often. I record almost every single prime time game and watch it at my own leisure on my own time but I understand some people can't fathom not watching a sporting event live. Not knocking that,  but if there is just one game on I'd rather record and watch then watch live.

Which kind of leads me to something else and it's really the other part of this equation. How do you watch your football?

If you watch live TV and can't fathom watching a recording I can see why some might not like the extra time commitment during school/work week. I'd guess those people who hate TNF are not people who often record games for the most part.

Next thing is do you watch actual games during Sunday afternoons or do you watch the Red Zone? If you are someone who likes to watch actual games spreading them out is great as it allows you to devote your eyeballs and attention to more games.  But if you are a Red Zone watcher it not only means nothing to have the product spread out but it slightly reduces the amount of highlights and Red Zone coverage.

I feel pretty sure if you watch live vs record, tend to watch Red Zone vs trying to view whole games, that it skews how people view TNF a great deal.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

As long as I can remember they went to a Saturday night game once the college season ended and was between bowl games starting.  Then the networks would have football.  It's usually just a couple Saturday's in December around the holidays.  I actually like those.  It's not overkill unless it's on top of all the Thursday games and then more than one Saturday game during that time. 

I must be older than you because we never had Saturday night football when I was young. 

It was considered taboo because that was college football day. 

Not sure what changed that but it’s only been around since 2006. 

so yeah - if you can’t remember past 12 years ago you either smoke too much hippy lettuce, or you’re not old. lol

 

[kneeshooter]

Here is the thing. If you don't like Thursday Night don't watch it. 

Agreed. Plenty of people (like me) love having football on Thursday nights. I understand people not interested/busy, what I just don't get are the people who hate it. You don't have to watch it, but about 15 million people a week do tune in.

I would like to see the schedule adapted so teams only play after a bye, and maybe have it end earlier in the year and switch over to Saturday night games after college regular season is over.

 

[nittanylion]

Not to hijack, but look at this mess:

Week 4: Redskins, Panthers

Week 5: Bears, Buccaneers

Week 6: Lions, Saints

Week 7: Packers, Seahawks, Steelers, Raiders

Week 8: Cowboys, Falcons, Titans, Chargers

Week 9: Eagles, Giants, Cardinals, Bengals, Colts, Jaguars

Week 10: Vikings, Ravens, Texans, Broncos

Week 11: 49'ers, Dolphins, Jets, Bills, Patriots, Browns

Week 12: Rams, Chiefs

...looks like a gerrymandered Congressional District!

Who comes up with this, and by what twisted logic does it make any sense at all?

Wouldn't it make sense to just have every Team play from Weeks 1-4, run the bye's through Weeks 5-12, 4 Teams/week, and have ever Team play Weeks 13-17?

I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

 

[menobrown]

I would like to see the schedule adapted so teams only play after a bye, and maybe have it end earlier in the year and switch over to Saturday night games after college regular season is over.

Totally agree with those suggestions. 

 

[Man In The Box]

I don't live in world that requires me to spend 3.5 hours watching a game but then I don't watch live TV either very often. I record almost every single prime time game and watch it at my own leisure on my own time but I understand some people can't fathom not watching a sporting event live. Not knocking that,  but if there is just one game on I'd rather record and watch then watch live.

Which kind of leads me to something else and it's really the other part of this equation. How do you watch your football?

If you watch live TV and can't fathom watching a recording I can see why some might not like the extra time commitment during school/work week. I'd guess those people who hate TNF are not people who often record games for the most part.

Next thing is do you watch actual games during Sunday afternoons or do you watch the Red Zone? If you are someone who likes to watch actual games spreading them out is great as it allows you to devote your eyeballs and attention to more games.  But if you are a Red Zone watcher it not only means nothing to have the product spread out but it slightly reduces the amount of highlights and Red Zone coverage.

I feel pretty sure if you watch live vs record, tend to watch Red Zone vs trying to view whole games, that it skews how people view TNF a great deal.

We all get together at my mothers house every Sunday for football and dinner. It’s a family day pretty much. The women and kids will sometimes go out and do something while the guys watch the games. Mostly Red Zone in the main TV, and I’ll put on a standalone game (usually Miami ) on the kitchen TV. When we get home, after the kids are in bed, I’ll watch the Sunday night game. This is the only time I will watch not-live football. I will usually miss some of the first half, and I’ll FF through the commercials until I’m caught up. I watch MNF about 70% of the time I’d guess. Not every week.  I’ve watched less Thursday night games as the years have gone on. I would say this year I’ve watched less than 50%. 

 

[kneeshooter]

Not to hijack, but look at this mess:

Week 4: Redskins, Panthers

Week 5: Bears, Buccaneers

Week 6: Lions, Saints

Week 7: Packers, Seahawks, Steelers, Raiders

Week 8: Cowboys, Falcons, Titans, Chargers

Week 9: Eagles, Giants, Cardinals, Bengals, Colts, Jaguars

Week 10: Vikings, Ravens, Texans, Broncos

Week 11: 49'ers, Dolphins, Jets, Bills, Patriots, Browns

Week 12: Rams, Chiefs

...looks like a gerrymandered Congressional District!

Who comes up with this, and by what twisted logic does it make any sense at all?

Wouldn't it make sense to just have every Team play from Weeks 1-4, run the bye's through Weeks 5-12, 4 Teams/week, and have ever Team play Weeks 13-17?

I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

I'd like to see an 18 week, 16 game season with two byes for each team. More time for each team to heal, improving the quality of play on all days of the week. 

Thursday games start Week 5 and go through the week of college conference championships. The 2 Sat games instead of Thursdays once the byes are done with.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

Here is the thing. If you don't like Thursday Night don't watch it. Take a game like tonight as an example. If this game was in the Sunday mixer most people would not watch the game anyway.

I don’t like the dentist either, but i still go to the dentist. 

I watch TNF because it’s football, and I love football. 

I can like the game  of football, watch TNF and still take issue with it.

my biggest complaint is that the product suffers for short rest for players.

my second biggest complaint is that the matchups are too often not meaningful or marquis. 

MNF seems to get dibs on the best games, SNF also has a pretty solid schedule. 

TNF consistently gets the red-headed stepchild matchups like tonight. 

Add in the hypocrisy of the NFL in saying they’re all about protecting players with a zillion rules changes, yet force players to go out on 3 days rest and bang into each other in prime time, and I think it’s a messy product. 

As someone suggested, having the games only between two teams that just had their BYE would be a good start. 

But they also need to put marquis matchups on the schedule, or it’s not going to be a great product.

Easy to say “don’t like it, don’t watch it” - but that doesn’t really fix what’s wrong with it.  And those of us speaking to it’s flaws would like to see it improve rather than complaining just to have something to complain about. 

Some of us want it to be a better product than it is. And since seemingly everyone at a discussion community is a football fan, it’s not really productive to the discussion to say “don’t like it don’t watch it”. 

 

[Steve Tasker]

Agreed. Plenty of people (like me) love having football on Thursday nights. I understand people not interested/busy, what I just don't get are the people who hate it. You don't have to watch it, but about 15 million people a week do tune in.

I don't really get the hate, though I suppose I could see it being a problem for serious fantasy players.

In all likelihood, if the TNF game was just another ho-hum average NFL game on a Sunday afternoon, I wouldn't watch it anyway ; I'd be watching a better game.  If it's on TNF, maybe I at least watch a few minutes...that's a few more minutes of football than I would've watched otherwise.  If it's a real juicy TNF matchup, okay the quality of the play will be worse than usual but you've got a game worth watching, playoff implications or whatever.  And if you've got something else going on, then don't watch.

Who doesn't like more football? 

 

[BradtheAg]

Not crazy about it, but Thursday night football > Monday night football

 

[kneeshooter]

my second biggest complaint is that the matchups are too often not meaningful or marquis. 

Eagles-Falcons, Rams-Vikes, Ravens-Bengals, Eagles-Giants (ok this one looked good before the season started) are all marquis match ups. Panthers-Steelers, Pack-Seahawks, Bears-Lions,  Saints-Cowboys and Chargers-Chiefs coming up. 

I do agree that the NFL seams to use Thursday more than Monday to give "lesser" teams a prime time spot, but that can still lead to entertaining games, like last years Rams-9ers shootout.. If the game's good, I watch. If not, I don't. Just like Sundays. I like having more options.

And I have no beef with tonight's game. Two 4-3 AFC teams, lot on the line. Winner takes a step towards the playoffs, loser has a lot of work to do. I'll tune in, better than the college slate tonight.

 

[Da Guru]

No reason for Thursday night games.  Players take a beating and over time their bodies grow accustomed to getting those days off to recover.  I doubt the players like Thursday either.  I would much rather just tune in on Sunday afternoon and start the football week.  I do like the Monday night games though.

Also, you did not ask, but I hate the overseas games.  Each team should get 8 home games.  Home field advantage is huge.

Hate the London games.   used to dislike Thursday night game but now love them.   It is only 1 game and teams only play once a year on Thurdays.  Lions and Cowboys have played a Thursday game forever. The players then have 10 days before playing again

 

[CalBear]

Thursday sucks. Monday should be a prime matchup, not a leftover. I don't mind Sunday night but it shouldn't be an emphasis.

 

[BillyJoeBob]

I voted dont really like it.

Thursday night is overkill for me.  Prefer Sunday day games and Monday nights.  

Sunday night games I could do without, but dont dislike as much as Thursday night games.   Early work start on Monday is hard enough without the late football game Sunday.

 

[Neo]

I wish it were Saturday night, Sunday and Monday. Thursdays suck. 

 

[[scooter]]

IIRC it used to only be thanksgiving. 

And that was always Lions/Cowboys

then they expanded it to 3 games on TG and I was ok with it. 

Then didn’t they try to make Saturday Night Football a thing for a little while at the end of the seasons?

and then they made TNF a regular thing. 

Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly but I think that’s how it went down. 

As long as I can remember they went to a Saturday night game once the college season ended and was between bowl games starting.  Then the networks would have football.  It's usually just a couple Saturday's in December around the holidays.  I actually like those.  It's not overkill unless it's on top of all the Thursday games and then more than one Saturday game during that time. 

The NFL has been doing 4+ Saturday games almost every year since the '50s, but it wasn't part of the TV package until recently.

The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 actually prohibited the NFL from broacasting games on Fridays and Saturdays from September through the 2nd week of December. The law was obviously designed to protect high school and college football, but it actually helped the NFL as well because it helped to define Sunday as "NFL game day".

 

[DocHolliday]

Hate Thursday night games.  I barely have time to watch football on the weekends and rarely get a chance to watch Thursday night football.  It feels like the NFL has been watered down with another night of football.  I love Monday night football.  I don't get a chance to watch Monday night football as much as I would like but it is still special some how.   

 

[Pigskin Fanatic]

curious how East coast and West coast viewers may differ on this. I'm on the west coast and like the schedule. Thursday and Monday night games start about an hour before i'm off work, so either i can hit up a bar for happy hour or watch the start of the game at the office and listen to half time/second half on the way home. either way, i get to watch at least first half always before getting home. Sunday is a crap shoot depending on plans, but i hope they never change Sunday.

Thursday night NFL certainly beats MACtion Thursdays.