With Thanksgiving upon us, I finally took the time to look at the schedule of NFL games set for Thursday. There’s little surprise that the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys are playing as they usually do. Unfortunately, the lineup of Lions vs. Packers, Cowboys vs. Commanders, and 49ers vs. Seahawks honestly doesn’t get me that pumped up.
However, to my great surprise, I saw there is a Black Friday night game this year! The Dolphins and Jets will hit the field Friday night, which is great because there isn’t all that much on TV that night and I’ll likely be in the need to unwind after some Christmas shopping and running errands. However, it also got me thinking, now with games throughout the week—Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—does it take away a bit of the mystique football has compared to other sports? For the NHL, NBA, and especially MLB, you can catch a game any day during the week. What set the NFL apart back in the day was it was almost exclusively played on Sunday.
There have been only eight NFL games played on Friday since 1978, including one in 2005 between the Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, which was rescheduled due to Hurricane Wilma. But now Friday games will be an annual occurrence because of a deal between the NFL and Amazon.
However, at this point, I’ll probably just sit back, relax, and be thankful that there is now yet another day to watch football.
