Richard Sherman: ‘Why I Hate Thursday Night Football’

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, after comparing a regular week in the life of an NFL player to a week when they play on Thursday night:

Like I’ve said before, the NFL is a bottom-line business. As long as fans are tuning in and advertisers are paying to be featured on Thursday Night Football, it’s not going anywhere. So I don’t know what the solution is. Maybe the league should take away one preseason game and add a second bye week for each team, which would occur before its Thursday game. That way, at least teams would have a full week to recover and prepare. (Or we could get rid of the preseason altogether … but that’s another issue for another day.)

I guess this is what happens when you have people in suits who have never played the game at this level dictating the schedule. I’d like to put Roger Goodell in pads for a late game on a Sunday, in December, in Green Bay, on the frozen tundra — then see what time he gets to the office on Monday morning, knowing that he would have to suit up again on Thursday.

Then maybe he’d understand….

I’ve often thought that the abbreviated weeks for Thursday night games must make a big difference in how the players feel. Sherman confirms it. Interesting too to see an active player calling out Goodell by name.

★ Thursday, 15 December 2016