I know that fans love Thursday night NFL football. It's another night that we get to watch our favorite sport. Owners love Thursday night football because it puts a lot of money into their pockets. If so many people love Thursday night football, why do the main characters (coaches and players) hate it? The NFL preaches about the health and well being of today's players ... "what can we do to make this game safer for them?" Then, the NFL goes out and makes players and coaches travel 3 time zones to play a game after just playing a game 4 days prior. Players bodies and brains aren't satisfactorily recovered from their physical play of a Sunday's game when forced to play on Thursdays. Minor injuries become more significant because of the lack of rest and treatment time. Any significant injury knocks a player out of the game which hurts the quality of play. How many good Thursday night games do we see, especially when a team has to travel 3 time zones? Let me answer ... very few. A player's body needs recovery time and so does their brain. A tired player is more susceptible to injury and poor play. And, how about the coaches? Coaches don't go home after the Sunday game, they go straight to the office and start watching game film of their Thursday opponent, then they stay up all night putting a game plan together so that they can install it to the players on Monday. Coaches are sleep deprived as it is, and with Thursday games, they never recover!! Coaches coach tired on Thursday night, they drink masses amounts of coffee or drink too many energy drinks to try to stay alert and keen. How many questionable coaching decisions do you see on Thursday night games?
How is this looking out for the safety and well being of players and coaches? If you're going to preach about the safety and well being of the players, look at all avenues to improve on, not just some. Lets not be blinded by gobs of money. I know that Thursday Night Football isn't going away, but lets put some guidelines in place to make it better for the main characters (coaches and players). Keep the teams in the same time zone, make sure that the teams didn't travel 2 or 3 time zones the previous game and have them play at 1pm. Lets give the coaches and players as much preparation time, and more importantly, as much recovery time as possible. After all, fans want to see quality football being played and coached on Thursday night. Money is often times blinding ... lets open our eyes to the betterment of the game, and to the well being of its main characters!!