Get Ready For Thursday Night Football

Your friendly neighborhood blogger dislikes two things (well, actually quite a few more but they’re not relevant to this) about the NFL: Thursday Night Football in general and Monday Night Football’s announcers.

We will leave MNF’s horrendous crew of gabbers out of this for now. Let’s look at Thursday Night Football.

The evening’s main event is the Philadelphia Eagles (2-3) at the New York Giants (1-4) on NBC and the NFL Network at 8:20 p.m. ET. That this is an NFC East division game is the only appealing thing about it at this point of the season.

The Eagles haven’t scored more than 24 points in a game. The Giants, like some breached wall in a flood, spring different leaks each week. The Eagles won’t run the ball and the Giants can’t. The Eagles have beaten the Giants three straight times and seven of eight. Snore. If this is your idea of fun, you sit right down and tune in and have yourself a hi-ho time.

It is the contention here that almost no team can be adequately prepared to play on Thursday night after playing on Sunday. At least in this case, the travel for the visitors is minimal. But a normal week of practice begins with heavy work on Wednesday and Thursday, tapering to some specialty aspects on Friday. In this truncated week, practice is barely possible and travel is on Wednesday.

If it isn’t too much for the players – they’re somewhat divided because they get a bunch of days off after a Thursday night game – it is for the audience (at least this piece of the audience). The Monday night game is barely forgotten (though Booger McFarland’s reedy voice continues to resonate in the many hollows of the mind) and we are on to the next week. It’s too much, too soon.

For you Eagles fans – Fly, Eagles, Fly. For you Giants fans – Go Giants! For me – a night off. As they say at the scene of accidents – move along, people. Nothing to see here.

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman