Here's how the non-Sunday/Monday NFL games SHOULD work

[GhostOfPoverty]

3 Thanksgiving games - the traditional 2 in Dallas and Detroit with 1 of the visiting teams being from the AFC, and 1 additional game between 2 AFC teams decided on a seasonal basis based on rotation and acceptable ratings predictions. This way each conference is equally represented in the Thanksgiving games with 3 teams each. Each team playing on Thanksgiving gets to have their bye week the week prior to the Thanksgiving games.

1 Season opener, always featuring the previous season's Superbowl champions on their home fields. This is done as a reward by giving them extra time before week 2 on the only week (week 1) where a Thursday doesn't automatically mean less time for starters to be rested and prepared. Their opponent should be decided on ratings.

Get rid of the rest of Thursday games entirely. A few Saturday games at the end of the season after college ball is ended is acceptable, but no games earlier in the weeks than that besides the aforementioned 4 total Thursday game exceptions. The only teams eligible to play Saturday games would be teams that played on the Sunday (not Monday) the previous week, and no teams to be forced to play more than 1 Saturday game apiece. Any teams that played on a Thanksgiving are to be excluded from being forced to play any of the Saturday games.

Every other game is to be played on Sundays or Mondays only.

 

[SteelersPride]

okie dokie

 

[NEPatsfan]

On the phone now with the commish, DONE!

 

[GhostOfPoverty]

okie dokie

On the phone now with the commish, DONE!

Obviously they're not going to change it.

But I figured that people complain about it enough on here that it's worth having a discussion about alternatives to the current system.

 

[shopson67]

No need to keep Detroit and Dallas involved. Neither is a watchable product right now anyway.

 

[richig07]

3 Thanksgiving games - the traditional 2 in Dallas and Detroit with 1 of the visiting teams being from the AFC, and 1 additional game between 2 AFC teams decided on a seasonal basis based on rotation and acceptable ratings predictions. This way each conference is equally represented in the Thanksgiving games with 3 teams each. Each team playing on Thanksgiving gets to have their bye week the week prior to the Thanksgiving games.

1 Season opener, always featuring the previous season's Superbowl champions on their home fields. This is done as a reward by giving them extra time before week 2 on the only week (week 1) where a Thursday doesn't automatically mean less time for starters to be rested and prepared. Their opponent should be decided on ratings.

Get rid of the rest of Thursday games entirely. A few Saturday games at the end of the season after college ball is ended is acceptable, but no games earlier in the weeks than that besides the aforementioned 4 total Thursday game exceptions. The only teams eligible to play Saturday games would be teams that played on the Sunday (not Monday) the previous week, and no teams to be forced to play more than 1 Saturday game apiece. Any teams that played on a Thanksgiving are to be excluded from being forced to play any of the Saturday games.

Every other game is to be played on Sundays or Mondays only.

Disagree

You keep the Thursday games, but you don't start them (outside of Week 1 SB champion game) until bye weeks start. Then you only schedule them for teams coming off of bye weeks.

All fixed, we get to keep the additional day of NFL football. Which I am all for, even with the current product.

 

[richig07]

No need to keep Detroit and Dallas involved. Neither is a watchable product right now anyway.

That would be a horrible move. The tradition of those teams playing should be permanent and is fantastic. Tradition is important for a league. They've always gone through ups/downs, like all NFL franchises. Using that as an excuse is silly.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

3 Thanksgiving games - the traditional 2 in Dallas and Detroit with 1 of the visiting teams being from the AFC, and 1 additional game between 2 AFC teams decided on a seasonal basis based on rotation and acceptable ratings predictions. This way each conference is equally represented in the Thanksgiving games with 3 teams each. Each team playing on Thanksgiving gets to have their bye week the week prior to the Thanksgiving games.

1 Season opener, always featuring the previous season's Superbowl champions on their home fields. This is done as a reward by giving them extra time before week 2 on the only week (week 1) where a Thursday doesn't automatically mean less time for starters to be rested and prepared. Their opponent should be decided on ratings.

Get rid of the rest of Thursday games entirely. A few Saturday games at the end of the season after college ball is ended is acceptable, but no games earlier in the weeks than that besides the aforementioned 4 total Thursday game exceptions. The only teams eligible to play Saturday games would be teams that played on the Sunday (not Monday) the previous week, and no teams to be forced to play more than 1 Saturday game apiece. Any teams that played on a Thanksgiving are to be excluded from being forced to play any of the Saturday games.

Every other game is to be played on Sundays or Mondays only.

Okay...nice read, but you're talking about something that MIGHT be in the future if you had your way.

Since you've kinda gone biz model adjusting...from the biz model standpoint, the biggest problem I see with getting rid of the TNF games is they would be giving up the revenue that game brings in from CBS, Fox and Amazon.

Reportedly Amazon paid $50 mil for the streaming rights, and the two networks pay roughly $460 mil per season....we're talking about half a billion dollars combined per season.

The NFL is in a declining viewership market. How do you expect to get that lost TV revenue back?

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Disagree

You keep the Thursday games, but you don't start them (outside of Week 1 SB champion game) until bye weeks start. Then you only schedule them for teams coming off of bye weeks.

All fixed, we get to keep the additional day of NFL football. Which I am all for, even with the current product.

This is probably closer to the fix. Don't need to have 16 TNF games, they're only getting TV revenue on 10 of them anyway (CBS and FOX both pay for 5 games each.)

The early season TNF games (say week 1) are true primetime games that don't get lost in the fray because we've been waiting all offseason. Maybe another one week 2 so both network partners get a decent matchup game early, then no more until the bye weeks start.

 

[NEPatsfan]

Disagree

You keep the Thursday games, but you don't start them (outside of Week 1 SB champion game) until bye weeks start. Then you only schedule them for teams coming off of bye weeks.

All fixed, we get to keep the additional day of NFL football. Which I am all for, even with the current product.

MAN! I just got off the phone with the commish fixing all this, now I have to call him back?

 

[Sgt Brutus]

My grandpa is Roger Goddell. I’ll sit him down over lunch and explain.

 

[shopson67]

That would be a horrible move. The tradition of those teams playing should be permanent and is fantastic. Tradition is important for a league. They've always gone through ups/downs, like all NFL franchises. Using that as an excuse is silly.

Tradition for what point? How many people actually want to see Detroit? Thursday games (especially on a holiday) are not a treat for the teams; this should rotate through all teams to be fair.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

Tradition for what point? How many people actually want to see Detroit? Thursday games (especially on a holiday) are not a treat for the teams; this should rotate through all teams to be fair.

Tradition is good. And if playing that day is not good for the teams why do you care if Dallas And Detroit get stuck with doing it every year?

And I'll watch Detroit on Turkey Day.

I'm not even Yankish and I've had those 2 days off since forever.

It's my one religious holiday.

 

[bksballer89]

TNF is going nowhere.

Get used to it.