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Fans are abuzz with a new conspiracy theory: the NFL might be secretly planning to expand its dominance into more days of the week. The speculation arises from recent scheduling choices that have placed certain high-profile teams in prime-time slots repeatedly.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, during a Thursday episode of PFT Live, raised the possibility that the league intentionally scheduled the Chicago Bears, Atlanta Falcons, and Dallas Cowboys for three consecutive prime-time games. He also noted that the Philadelphia Eagles had back-to-back night games.
"Here's my hypothesis, because, look, it may just be random. It may just be, but when that many teams are getting three in a row in prime time, I wonder if they are experimenting with having the same team in prime time for multiple weeks for if and when they ever fully embrace Tuesday and Wednesday night," Florio explained.
He continued, "If you do that, the only way to make the schedule work is to have a team play Thursday one week, Wednesday the next week, Tuesday the next week, to give them maximum time between games. You're going to have to do this surgery to the schedule that has the same teams popping up again."
So, Tuesday Night Football? Wednesday Night Football? That's the goal here? The "everything is a money grab" folks must feel vindicated and livid at the same time.
Why the NFL-all-week theory would be stupid and scary if true
Commissioner Roger Goodell has a mixed history when it comes to wanting what's best for his players and expanding the league's reach to previously unfathomable realms. If he's actually angling to get more games on for people to come home from work and plop themselves on the couch for, this may be a bridge too far.
First, players are creatures of habit. It's already inconvenient enough for them to deal with short weeks or extra long weeks when their team is scheduled for Thursday Night Football. The league may try to sell more mid-week games as an opportunity to give players more rest entering or exiting a bye week, but all it's going to do is throw them off their routines. It's part of the reason why TNF games always produce such wonky results.
Second, there's a big risk assuming audiences are going to treat having the NFL on television four days of the week as appointment viewing. The league's competitors this time of year — the NBA and NHL — have teams playing at about the same frequency, with games available just about every night for roughly seven months. Die-hard fans will watch every game their favorite team plays, but not every available game that's shown. They have lives to live even if it feels like their entire existence is dedicated to their team; there's a reason those two regular seasons aren't the phenomenon that the NFL's is.
The NFL's novelty is grounded in the fact that it practically owns a single day of the week. We colloquially call it NFL Sunday for a reason. Thursday and Monday night only relatively recently became engrained in our society's psyche; adding two extra days of the week will bring all that crashing down. Fans will look at the abundance of games as reason to pick and choose the one or few contests most appealing to them and skip the rest to continue on with their life priorities. The NBA, NHL and MLB are casual watches during the regular season instead of reason for constant monitoring even if you're in a fantasy league. The NFL is unnecessarily risking draining views for the sake of claiming more room on television schedules.
Originally reported by fansided.