Thursday Night and Bye Weeks - A Proposal (1 Viewer)

[mr roboto]

Lots of discussion about TNF, in particular how crappy the games are and how players who are dinged up can't really play at 100% with just 3 days from Sunday to Thursday.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why not only have teams coming off a bye play Thursday night?

Lets say Vikings and Colts have a week 5 bye. They can play week 6 Thursday, then week 7 Sunday. I know it would reduce the length of the bye a bit, but then they would have another 10 days after the Thursday game.

So play Sunday, bye week the following Sunday, play Thursday, off that Sunday, play the following Sunday.

 

[danielmclark]

That got brought up the other day in the thread about the league considering doubleheader Thursdays... I think it's a fantastic idea. It might be a little cumbersome to schedule, since both teams would have to have the same bye week, but it could absolutely work.

 

[Resident A]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

 

[mr roboto]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

Yea. I get that my proposal would reduce the Thursday night games in total. But it would certainly improve the product. Plus, with 16 weeks, couldn't they conceivably get all teams on MNF?

 

[danielmclark]

It wouldn't necessarily have to be weeks 1-17 if they did doubleheaders on Thursdays, though. They could still have the same number of bye weeks, but some Thursdays would have one game, some Thursdays could have two games. It would mean not starting Thursday games until a couple of weeks into the season, however. They won't want to do that, I'm sure.

 

[Warhogs]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

Yea. I get that my proposal would reduce the Thursday night games in total. But it would certainly improve the product.Plus, with 16 weeks, couldn't they conceivably get all teams on MNF?

But they would lose out on $$$ with less televised Thursday night games. That just isn't going to happen.

 

[mr roboto]

Agreed. But I wish it did. Everyone complains about it. It's hard for the betters, FF players, NFL players and the ratings aren't very good.

 

[Saint]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

Yea. I get that my proposal would reduce the Thursday night games in total. But it would certainly improve the product.Plus, with 16 weeks, couldn't they conceivably get all teams on MNF?

But they would lose out on $$$ with less televised Thursday night games. That just isn't going to happen.

winner winner chicken dinner. nfl is in the business of entertainment and broadcasting first and foremost.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

Yea. I get that my proposal would reduce the Thursday night games in total. But it would certainly improve the product.Plus, with 16 weeks, couldn't they conceivably get all teams on MNF?

But they would lose out on $$$ with less televised Thursday night games. That just isn't going to happen.

winner winner chicken dinner. nfl is in the business of entertainment and broadcasting first and foremost.

Yes, but how did they get there? Competitiveness and good quality games. They're killing something here, part of what has made their "product" great. It's like a great, popular restaurant, people spilling out into the streets to get a table, national reputation; and then a new owner comes in and starts making small changes, like reducing the size of the tables and chairs, using cheaper butter, maybe using frozen ingredients here and there, watering down the drinks, slightly decreasing cooking times, etc. - Yes, they serve more people, yes they make more money, but eventually... people notice.

 

[Underachievers]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

Yea. I get that my proposal would reduce the Thursday night games in total. But it would certainly improve the product.Plus, with 16 weeks, couldn't they conceivably get all teams on MNF?

But they would lose out on $$$ with less televised Thursday night games. That just isn't going to happen.

winner winner chicken dinner. nfl is in the business of entertainment and broadcasting first and foremost.

Yes, but how did they get there? Competitiveness and good quality games. They're killing something here, part of what has made their "product" great. It's like a great, popular restaurant, people spilling out into the streets to get a table, national reputation; and then a new owner comes in and starts making small changes, like reducing the size of the tables and chairs, using cheaper butter, maybe using frozen ingredients here and there, watering down the drinks, slightly decreasing cooking times, etc. - Yes, they serve more people, yes they make more money, but eventually... people notice.

People are already noticing. With all the changes made to make the game more "exciting" to the average fan, it is already a far cry from the game we watched even a decade ago (not to mention 30 years ago). Add to it the continued uproar over concussions, the time is rapidly approaching that the NFL will be a shell of it's former self.

 

[atcdav]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

At a minimum, the Thursday team should have an early home game Sunday if not a bye preceding the Thursday game

 

[T with T]

Nice idea but like they said $$$$ it is absolutely not happening. Book it. I would like to see a better format for thursday night games or just eliminate them all together. To many sloppy, ####ty, grinding games that are boring and have no Entertainment value. Teams look slow and lethargic and not interested... Stick to sun, mon and thur ( thanksgiving) and sat (christmas) games. That would be best for the product.

 

[DropKick]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game. For your idea to work, there would have to be at least 2 teams on bye every week 1-17.

The NFL had Week 1 byes for a year or 2 when there were only 31 teams (prior to either the Browns or Texans being added). It was kind of a disaster having a team not start their season until Week 2.

They could strive to schedule Thursday games after a bye - but not necessarily do so early/late in the season. Meets the intent of the OP without throwing out the baby with the bath water.

 

[Wreckincrew]

I would much rather have 2 Monday night games.

For Thursday, start the season at the SB champ, skip a couple weeks and start them week 5 with teams that had a week 4 bye. Continue with the "bye week teams play" scenario until after Thanksgiving, (about week 13?) and switch to Saturday games.

 

[dlcb1]

The way to do it is to add another bye week and expand the season to 18 weeks. Then each team gets a regular bye and a Thursday bye. The extra rest should increase the quality of play throughout the season, and the extra bye would also reduce the chances of scheduling conflicts. The extra week gives the greedy NFL the extra revenue it desires.

As for the Thursday game after week one problem, for week one the NFL could place a game or two on Friday or Saturday and make a bigger spectacle of beginning the season. Pick a couple of those teams with the early games and give them the Thursday game after week one. Some may complain about too many games on too many days, but that ship has sailed. At this point the goal should be to provide a quality experience.

 

[Annyong]

Change Thursday games to Fridays

 

[Bruce Hammond]

Change Thursday games to Fridays

Nah, they don't want to compete with (1) HS football and (2) Friday night date night. Thursday and Monday work because most people have nowhere to go those nights. Not so on Friday.

 

[Mr. Retukes]

That's a great idea.

 

[valhallan]

A lot of the NFL's growth over the last decade came from fantasy football. Thursday games affect us the most and we're the ones complaining. Will they listen to us? No way, we're addicted and they know it.

 

[Leonidas]

The idea of TNF is that every team gets a primetime game.

It seems to me that idea is to give people an 'incentive' to pay money, one way or the other, for NFL Network.

 

[GregR]

Change Thursday games to Fridays

Nah, they don't want to compete with (1) HS football and (2) Friday night date night. Thursday and Monday work because most people have nowhere to go those nights. Not so on Friday.

According to the law that gives anti-trust exemption for collectively negotiating broadcast rights... the NFL would have to blackout any Friday night or Saturday broadcast to any location that is within 75 miles of a regular season HS or college game.

Which would be pretty much the entire country. So no way they would play games that cannot be broadcast.

 

[Daywalker]

We have 17 weeks of regular season action. Just go 19 with 2 more byes. Clean up the Thursday night games while you are at it. Don't need to got to 18 games regular season. Just more byes. More revenue and better for the health of the players.