Thursday Night Football games remind me of a famous old Lewis Black joke about candy corn.
Black says that he hates candy corn, finds the taste awful, but every year, “like an Alzheimer’s patient,” he comes back and eats it, forgetting how truly terrible it is.
That is my relationship with Thursday Night Football.
Every year football season starts back up, and starting in Week 2, I excitedly flip on Thursday Night Football … and there it is. Unprepared teams exchanging interceptions and field goals. Coaches wasting timeouts. Injury-depleted teams looking tired, jet-lagged (sometimes both!) as they slog through a stupid game that ends disappointingly.
And here we are in 2015, and this is still a thing.
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Thursday night’s showdown between Washington and New York wasn’t ever going to be a classic. Two poor teams fighting to escape the cellar of the NFC East isn’t exactly a marquee bill. But that game was also not helped by the fact that both teams were missing numerous players due to injury, and both teams seemed often woefully unprepared for their opponents.
The game ended 32-21 in favor of the Giants, which sounds more exciting than it was. Other than a Rashad Jennings blocked punt and an amazing Odell Beckham Jr. catch, I’m struggling to remember a single moment from last night’s game, and it ended about 8 hours ago. Oh right, Washington running back Matt Jones fumbled a sure touchdown out the back of the end zone. There was that.
I’d argue the game was decided by two air balls that Eli Manning threw out there that his talented receivers were able to go and get. Other than that, the game was a lot of field goals and Kirk Cousins interceptions. Great.
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The coaches hate it. Here’s Tom Coughlin this week on preparing for a Thursday night game.
Ah yes, those are the types of games I like to watch. The ones of which coaches are using metaphors about jamming their feet into a way-too-small shoe. Perfect.
Listen, I understand why Thursday Night Football exists. The fans want more football, the league wants to make more money. Who am I to argue against the tenets of American capitalism? But at the same time. Man. These games are not fun to watch. The teams are not ready.
If teams play on Sunday, take Monday to rest and get their bodies right (they did just play a professional football game), they now have two days to prepare for another professional football game. This is bananas. Even more bananas is if the team traveled the week before, or have to travel for Thursday.
The players are risking their health and safety by rushing out too quickly. The coaches are asked to prepare teams to face opponents in too small a window of time.
We pay the price. But the NFL continues to make money, and who could argue with that?
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