Only The Stunads At The NFL and ESPN Could Have Screwed Up The Double Dose Monday Night Football Schedule Like They Did Tonight
Earlier, I blogged about ESPN unveiling its new Monday Night Football theme song done by Chris Stapleton and Snoop Dogg...
In it, I included this piece from ESPN's official press release.
Tonight’s debut of Phil Collins’ megahit ahead of Monday Night Football adds to the television franchise’s “Two Games, One Night,” special presentation (Monday, Sept. 18). The new open by Chris Stapleton, Snoop Dogg and Cindy Blackman Santana will lead into both ESPN (Saints at Panthers, 7:15 p.m. ET) and ABC (Browns at Steelers, 8:15 p.m.) games and then continue ahead all Monday Night Football games, ESPN’s Week 18 Saturday Doubleheader, Super Wild Card, and its first Divisional playoff game.
Why on God's great Earth would you idiots do this?
Both games overlapping each other like this? Why? For what reason? How?
I've long been the captain of team "two MNF games", and for doing away with Thursday Night football in the process.
These little assholes dickteased us last year, via their little fluffer Schefter
The best Monday of the season used to be opening weekend, when we got the double-dipped Monday Night Games. Early East Coast, late West Coast games. For some reason, that changed this year with them moving it to week 2 instead.
What was unbeknownst until this morning was that these games tonight aren't going to be back to back. They kicked them off at fucking 6:15 and 7:15 pm Central time.
Whose idiotic idea was this???
The beauty of these dual-Monday night games was that we got a solid 6-7 hours of NFL football on the shittiest day of the week.
Was it more important to ESPN to squeeze that bald asshole from D.C. in at 10pm eastern instead of 12 so they slated these two games overlapping each other? Making us choose to have one game on or the other? Or flipping back and forth?
The level of stupidity here really is mind-blowing.
The NFL needs to figure it out, make a decision, and stick to it. And the right decision is adopting the original, back to back, east coast/west coast, early and late start Monday Night model. To hell with the Thursday experiment. Give the Thursday night TV contract to the 2nd Monday night game and have them rotate between the early and late game each week with ESPN.
That way the league keeps its third prime-time, nationally televised game for ad purposes, the players actually get an extra day's rest, instead of 3 days fewer, and we get something to look forward to on the Monday commute home.
What gives me zero confidence this will ever happen is the fact that it makes too much sense, and the league loves to do the opposite of what makes sense. That and they give zero fucks about player safety.
Some people are quality people. Some people are quantity people. I'm a quality guy. Always have been. I'd rather have lesser of something that's better quality, than more of something that's dogshit.
And you're lying to yourself if you think Thursday Night Football is anything more than dogshit.
The players hate it. The coaches hate it. Even Al Michaels is openly verbal about how much it sucks! Remember last season?
The matchups are always dog shit. The quality of play is always dog shit. The networks that broadcast it and their announcer teams are dogshit. The propensity for potential injury skyrockets on a short week. The list goes on and on.
Aside from all that, there's almost nothing better than getting two Monday Night Football matchups.
Especially in the dark days of November or December when you wake up and it's dark out. And you get home from work and it's dark out. Mondays suck in general. But they suck extra in the cold months. So, coming home from work, ordering food, and posting up on your couch for not one BUT two quality prime-time NFL games with a nice six-pack of High Life makes Mondays amazing.
It's a win-win for everybody.
If you're on the East Coast you've got the first game kicking off around 6 o'clock right when you walk in the door, and the second around d 9/9:30, meaning you can watch both and hopefully be in bed before midnight/1 am.
If you're on the West Coast, you've got the second game actually kicking off at a time you can watch without having to leave work early or sneak on your phone to see.
And if you're in the central time zone, the greatest, it's ideal viewing for everything as always.
The players and coaches get an extra day's rest, they're playing in front of a national audience, and the rest of the league as is always the case on MNF, now it's 4 squads instead of 2. Hopefully, this is the first step towards making it a weekly tradition going forward.
(Sidebar- while we’re on the subject, why do we need 20 1 pm games and 2-3 late afternoon games? Why can’t we balance it out so that we’re not forced to watch Dallas/Arizona/Seattle every late afternoon Sunday? Spread it around a little bit. Plus, the 4 p.m. East Coast kickoffs are awesome. There was nothing better than the 4 p.m. kickoffs at Gillette when they had them a lot. Tailgating all day, hitting Howl for the last few on the way into the stadium. Enjoying what felt like a prime-time game but ended early enough that you could still get home without having Monday morning completely ruined or having to sit in traffic on Rt 1 until 2 am. Clean it up, scheduling committee!)
At the absolute very least, if they remain hell-bent on this Thursday Night Football experiment, they could pair up two opposing teams that are each coming off a bye week to play on Thursdays. That would become the norm. You got a bye week? You're playing next Thursday night. That way, the time off, scheduling, and recovery issue is negated, and we get a better quality product. Boom. Done. Why hasn't this been figured out yet? It's even easier to do now with the season extended a week (speaking of which, the league needs to give teams 2 bye weeks now).