The NFL’s quest to own as many days of the week as possible will not be deterred by trivial matters such as proper rest, recovery, and preparation.
Via Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, the current annual meeting will include consideration of a proposed change to the current policy that limits teams to two “short-week” games per year.
The revision would exempt Friday games from the calculation. The league currently plays on Black Friday afternoon. In 2026, Christmas lands on a Friday; three games are likely coming, two at a minimum.
Friday also becomes another way to cram more cheese into the pizza after the middle of December, when the prohibition on Friday night games ends. Why not play one every week? Likewise, if/when the NFL returns to Labor Day weekend for Week 1 — and if/when the following Friday isn’t the second Friday of September — it could stage a Friday night game five days after the first Sunday of the season.
It’s just another step, in our view, toward creating as many weekly standalone windows as possible. Why play eight or nine games at 1:00 p.m. ET on a Sunday when those games can be peeled away and slipped into a vacant three-hour slot on one of the other days of the week?
Removing Friday from the “short-week” limit becomes another way to ensure maximum flexibility when it comes to picking the games for those windows. And it’s far closer to the beginning than the end of the changes the league will be making when it comes to scheduling.
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