NFL has made it clear through fines and suspensions that players require proper protection. However, than they pit two conference and division rivals against each other on a short week with only 3 days rest. That seems like a really short window with all the wrong interests in mind. If the league is "trying" harder to protect players than I don't understand Thursday Night Football? If we are going to have Thursday night games should they not come only after a teams had their bye week? Right now, it looks more like a great marketing campaign for the NFL to gain more exposure than a well thought out, and justifiable reason to bout two teams coming off limited rest.
Thurday Night FB is just a money grab by the NFL (notice what channel all Thurs night games are on). Friday night is out due to high school FB. Saturday night is out due to college FB. Sunday and Monday are taken up by the $B+ tv packages. That leaved Thur night for the NFL to stage their own MNF. But I like your idea of playing a Thurs night game only after a bye week. Or at least not forcing teams to play Sun/Thur against division rivals.
It's all about the coin. Hell, they make millions per year fining players for ambiguous infractions. They claim they are emphasizing safety yet want to move to an 18 game season. Not sure how that's safer.... Pretty soon you won't be able to stop anyone unless it's a wrap up tackle, which feeds into the NFL's offense = excitement agenda.
JetsVilma28 - the only problem with your proposal about the two teams playing on Thursday after a buy (which wounds great) if that byes only happen in the middle of the season. Therefore, the NFL would have to give up the Thursday night games at the beginning and the end of the season. Regardless of the Thursday nights I don't understand why the NFL doesn't mandate the when the bye's start that both teams that play are either coming off of a bye or not coming off a bye. It doesn't seem fair that one team is coming off a bye and one team isn't. However, that's how it happens most of the time.
To be fair, though, the NFL does not keep any of the money it collects with fines. All of it is donated to charity. (Ochocinco asked Goodell if he could specify what charity his fines from TD celebrations would go to, which was kind of amusing.) As for the 18 game season, they've backed away from that and I read that that is no longer on the table for immediate implementation (it could have happened as early as 2014 I think) because they're realizing that a lot of guys are getting injuries to their knees and legs after they took a strong stance against hits to the head. I do think they are wary about cracking down too much on tackling, because that's part of what makes football football, but on the other hand they do want to make the game safer so that you don't have as many guys dying in their 40s and 50s after they leave the game. IMO they need to orient helmets towards protecting against concussions rather than focusing only on preventing (fatal) skull fractures. It would also help a lot if they phased in some head MRIs, follow some players through their careers with scans before and after every season and start to be able to figure out which guys are getting or are likely to get long-term damage, and which guys are okay. Because there are some guys who took just as much abuse as Junior Seau or Terry Bradshaw, yet never got CTE, and maybe we will find some way to tell which guys are vulnerable and let them make an informed decision about how long to stay in the game. And then keep that info out of teams' hands so that they can't use it to discriminate against players who are more fragile concussion-wise. We definitely don't want football to become two-hand-touch or anything ridiculous like that, and there have to be hard tackles, but on the other hand it also helps the game if we can reduce the brain injuries and knee injuries. I'm not sure what all the right or best answers are, but I agree that moving to an 18 game schedule would be the wrong move. (I like how with 16 games, each one is very important, and I also think it's better because it's hard to compare stats from previous eras when they played fewer games. And I also think you need a 4-game pre-season to help evaluate players.)
I don't understand the link between protecting players and Thursday Night football....as others have said, it's simply a marketing strategy in order to get more games on national TV with little or no competition...
Just not a big fan of the late night games,, Thur. night is just so damn hard when you have to work the next day,, The late night late Sunday game also hurts on Monday. And Monday night, just forget about it.
Move west young man, move west edit: when I visit my bro out west I gotta admit it's kind of weird having Sunday pre-game shows start at 9am and kick-off at 10am. And MNF starting at 6pm when just getting home from work.
if they really need to do it make it Friday, that gives each team one more day. I hate it but I hate Monday Night games too. I prefer Sunday afternoon games w/ the late season Saturday afternoon games. If they want the opener to be Thursday to honor the defending champs that's ok but a Thursday game every week just so they can put it on NFL Network is silly especially since everything is geared toward player safety supposedly. The only safety they really care about is when a lawsuit is attached so until one comes about they will have Thursday Night games.
Monday night games end to late, for those of us who wake up early, which is probaly the majority, you feel like you have a hangover the next day
thursday night football began because they were trying to force cable companies to pay them for nfl network, they really really wanted to get a sweetheart deal like espn and be on in every home in the country. they put games on thursdays to get people to put pressure on their providers. then they did it for part of the year for a few years and now they have gone all season long. i typically dont even think about the game, dont care 90% of the time as its usually not a good game and there is usually a decent college game on. that is one thing that has suffered too, espn doesnt schedule really good games on thursdays anymore since the nfl thursday games have been on. a few years ago it was sec games or acc or big east every thursday. now its maac and other smaller conferences or big east with usf taking on ct.
Monday night football should begin at 7:30. In the autumn, that's night. That gives people plenty of time to get to the stadium wherever they live (if you work in NYC and get off work at 5:30 you will be there for a 7:30 kickoff easy) and it will let them get to bed at a reasonable hour. Thursday night football is a joke. The games are wretched quality wise because of gassed teams. And when you factor in bad weather like last Thursday it becomes a shitshow of epic proportions. Plus most of us aren't even conditioned recognize thursday as an NFL night unless our team is playing. Many times I've woken up on Friday and saw "oh shit....KC and Jax played last night? I didn't know...eh who cares"
When I went out to the Jets Seahawks game last season this was definitely kind of weird. Football starting at 10, the "late" game is the normal 1:15 game out there and the SNF game was basically the 4:30 game. My buddy and I were explaining to people out there that most gainfully employed people on the East coast are in bed for a good portion of the 2nd half of the SNF game, particularly for those that put in a long day of going to the game earlier in the day.
