Die hard NFL & Pats fan for a few decades now. I’ve always been of the mindset that more football is better than less, so I’ve always welcomed the Saturday games added to the schedule in late December.
But I have to say that today’s Black Friday game fell flat to me. So do the Sunday morning European games. For whatever reason that I haven’t been able to identify, I just don’t get up for them like I do the normal slate. It’s almost like I feel bad for watching them instead of doing normal shit. I’m good to watch the Thursday and Monday night games because the kids are asleep. Sunday afternoon is sort of accepted as time for football. But Friday afternoon and Sunday morning?? I get why the nfl is doing it. They’re wanting to expand viewership in Europe AND more importantly, dominate other time slots for ratings and future tv contracts. I get it but I also really find myself tuning out.
Am I alone on this island or does it feel like the NFL is quasi jumping the shark?
Personally not a fan at all. Don’t even like TNF, might change my mind if they change it so only teams coming off a bye can play TNF but the NFL obviously won’t do that. It’s just clear the coaches don’t have enough time to game plan and the players don’t have enough time to recover, so the quality of the games suffer.
The international games annoy me because I’ve been burned more than once with a game time scratch and I don’t want to have to get up at 0630 to check my fantasy roster, but obviously tapping the international market is probably way more valuable than catering to fantasy football players on the west coast. I do wonder if the travel has an impact on the quality of the games, but I doubt it’s anywhere near the impact of the short rest of TNF.
Saturday games don’t bother me when college football isn’t going.