The NFL has temporarily tabled the idea of flex-scheduling Thursday night games until May, but it is leaving open the possibility to increase viewership for those games with more intriguing matchups.
Allow teams to play more than one Thursday night game on a short week per season.
Through the end of the 2022 season NFL teams were allowed to play only one Thursday night game on a short week, so this would be a pretty significant change.
It will also probably not be popular among players.
Or fans.
Thursday night games have been an issue for the league because players hate them due to the short week and lack of recovery time from Sunday. Fans tend to dislike them because the matchups are typically bad and the quality of play seems to be lesser than it is from other games due to the short preparation and recovery time.
Under this change, some teams might not play any short-week games, while others might have to play multiple.
That in itself creates a competitive disadvantage for the teams that are subjected to multiple short-week games.
Amazon is tied into an 11-year, billion-dollar TV deal to exclusively broadcast Thursday night games, so there is some obvious pressure to make those games a success that people want to watch. While the NFL is a monster on the American sports scene and will do good ratings no matter who plays, good teams playing big games will still do significantly better than bad teams playing meaningless games.
That is how you get the idea of flex scheduling for Thursday games and making teams play multiple times on a short week.
