Too Much Football?

I've never been a fan of the Thursday night football games. The NFL thinks that every fan wants more football. I'd rather see more football on Sunday. The NFL says that the Thursday night games are for the fans. The NFL should admit that the Thursday night games are all about the money. Money is what drives, actually flies, the NFL to London. Money is what drives the NFL to Thursday. Most, maybe even all, of the players would prefer to drop the extra night of football. Some of the younger players might not care when they play. They likely will if they last long enough.

Says Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Ryan Pickett: "People don't know; after the game, it's normally Friday and Saturday when your body starts feeling better. I've been around for 13 years, so it takes a little longer to recover."

Playing another game before the body has recovered from a previous game doesn't sound like the right thing to do, ever. Maybe most of the players can recover in time to play a Thursday game early in the season. Doing it in November in December is pretty much impossible. The league stresses to the press and the fans their pursuit of safety in the game. Their actions often contradict that pursuit. Forcing every player in the league to play two football games in five days doesn't show a great concern for safety. Commissioner Roger Goodell has a dream of squeezing an 18-game schedule out of the players. The NFL tried to show their concern for player safety by doing an injury study. The league found that roughly the same number of injuries happened in 2012 Thursday games (5.2 per game) as in games played on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (5.3). There are so many problems with this study. One season is a ludicrously small sample size. It could reveal nothing more than blind luck. What constitutes an injury? Are they only counting the players that are seen on the ground? Are they only counting the players that leave the game? How many players actually exit an NFL feeling excellent? I'd be more curious to see the injury rates of players in the games following a Thursday night game. The safety concern of Thursday games is not necessarily the injuries in that game. It's playing a game after only three days of rest. It's playing a football game before a player has truly recovered. A player's body likely has only so many games in it. Playing two games in five days might be the equivalent of playing four games. Maybe more. Study that. The league should do a study that actually shows something meaningful before they make an NFL playing career even more stressful.

I tend to side with the players on most league matters. Especially on those matters that deal with safety. Most everything that the NFL does is about the money. After all, it's a business. The players only get a few years to make their money in the game. The owners can get a lifetime. Virginia McCaskey has never seen a day that her family hasn't owned the Chicago Bears. She's 90. Right now, the league has their own network televising the Thursday night games. They are looking to put half of the games up to the highest bidder. Turner, Fox, NBC, and ESPN might all jump into the bidding. This potential bidding war could bring in $700 million per year. For eight games! It's getting to the point where TV networks will pay any amount that the NFL fancies. Everybody is watching. The game pairing the Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars, five wins between them, was probably one of the most watched shows on TV last night. Everybody is watching. The NFL is a juggernaut and they still want more. At some point, the league has to step back and realize that it's the players that are paying the price. Unfortunately, the league also knows that there's an endless supply of football players. There always has been.

The players aren't innocent little bunnies here. They opened the door for the expansion of the Thursday games when they agreed to the recent Collective Bargaining Agreement. Maybe it was one of the final gives in the extended give-and-take of the ridiculous lockout.