Why I Hate TNF

Why I Hate Thursday Night Football
By Tex DeVille

A few years ago, when Thursday Night Football was first introduced to me as a concept, I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, there were less days in between games. For some reason, Sunday never came fast enough following the Monday night game. Then the reality of it came out: you can only enjoy TNF if you get the NFL Network. Well, that’s not too big of a deal.

Oh, wait, not every cable provider has NFL Network. I remember that the first time my now wife was going to meet my parents, her parents were also coming over, and we were all going to have dinner and watch the Cowboys game (both families love football). Then I found out: my family’s current provider doesn’t have NFLN!!!! I told my mom that week, who hurriedly switched providers in order to get the game. As I remember it, the Cowboys won. This doesn’t change the fact that we had to go out of our way for a product that should have been available to us with no issues.

To the NFL’s credit, they have since allowed local markets to broadcast TNF on local channels, including MNF games normally on ESPN. However, I am of the opinion that this was less about the fans and more about the fact that the first ever Thanksgiving night game that legendary owner Lamar Hunt fought for his whole life was hosted by his Chiefs, and he couldn’t watch it because it was on NFLN. He was in the hospital for complications due to prostate cancer, the very thing that would claim his life very soon after. Since then, the NFL has tried to push TNF more and more, up to this year, where it is every week.

So, as a football fan, what is my problem? I mean, that means only 1 or 2 days between game days. How is this bad?

First, now as a blogger/picker/fantasy owner, I have less time to analyze teams in practice, injuries, etc. Sometimes, injuries aren’t reported until Friday or Saturday. What if I would have started a Thursday Night player, but can’t now because they’ve already played, and THEN I find out about an injury to my set starter right before kickoff on Sunday? My articles are sometimes rushed to meet the deadline before TNF kicks off. I mean, as much as I would LOVE for this to be my only job, it’s not. I have a job, a wife, and a son. Without TNF, I could have the week off and spend Saturday analyzing and changing articles and switching players and trading and all that stuff. 

Now, before you start your objections, I realize that baseball and basketball have games almost every day and are not as regimented in their game day as football. I realize you just have to roll with it. The difference is that football has 17 weeks plus the postseason. That’s 16 games. Baseball has 162 games, and basketball has 82. If you mess up one game, you have 161 and 81, respectively, to correct it. That’s about 0.6% and 1.2%. Contrast that to football, where one game is 6.25%, and you can see the problem.

Second, the games are horrible. The NFL decided that every team will play at least once on TNF during the course of the season. I’m sorry, but this week a potential matchup was the Browns and Raiders. God forbid that was the game. Even so, there have been some real doozies this year: Cardinals/Rams, Chiefs/Chargers, Giants/Panthers, Dolphins/Bills, and even a game with the Jags, along with some games that looked unimportant that turned out to be upsets or are just now getting to be important: Steelers/Titans and Bucs/Vikings. That is 7 games out of 12 that either weren’t good, were surprisingly good, or didn’t look important at the time, but look important in retrospect. Why would anyone care about the NFLN with games like these?

Then we get down to the phrase that raises the ire of every single football fan because of its overuse on everything under the sun: PLAYER SAFETY. Look, I’m all for punishing actual dirty plays and such, and I know I’m not the only one that saw a huge increase in season ending injuries pre-season starting from a few years back, but the way the league is handling it is spineless and arbitrary. It reminds me of when I was playing Batman:  Arkham Asylum. The Joker takes over Arkham Asylum and blasts random bits of hilarity over the intercom system. My favorite was when he says something along these lines: “Arkham Asylum is under my control, and I have only one rule. Breaking this rule is punishable by death, and you know the best part? I’m not going to tell you the rule!” Now, I am not comparing Goodell to The Joker, because that’s insulting to The Joker, but that is the system of player safety that is currently being used. While evidently hitting someone too hard is illegal in football, requiring teams to hit each other legally 3 times in 17 days is totally fine. That's because everyone knows it’s those vicious hits that cause long term damage, not a gauntlet of full games that no one should have to do. The NFL is covering its own butt due to the ocean of lawsuits currently being thrown at it.

How do they do this? Well, as Ed Reed said this week, “By taking it out on us.”