Report: Bucs Among Teams That Approved Thursday Night Flex Scheduling
April 3rd, 2023
Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer.
Joe doesn’t try to pull teeth from Team Glazer to get their stance on various ownership issues at the NFL Annual Meeting (nee: owners meetings) because, those issues are usually boring as hell.
Also, given the limited time to speak with the Bucs’ shotcallers on the record, Joe has to pick and choose subjects wisely. Joe wants to know more about what Team Glazer thinks of the team’s direction as opposed to NFL broadcast minutia.
And that doesn’t even factor in whether Team Glazer even wants the general public to know how they voted.
Well, per well-plugged in Albert Breer of SI.com, Buccaneers co-chairman Joel Glazer was vocal about the NFL adopting a flex scheduling format for Thursday night games (in part, so Al Michaels doesn’t have to sell Mazdas). Glazer and the majority of NFL owners don’t want to stick Amazon with a lemon of a game each week. (Yes, Joe means “majority” and it is accurate. The NFL needed 24 votes to push through Thursday night flexing, and only got 22 votes — which is a majority but short of the required 24 — so the subject was tabled).
Joe was asked over the weekend by a loyal reader if Joe probed Glazer on his vote. Joe did not (see the explanation above). Per Breer, we now know how Glazer voted.
Giants owner John Mara was first to speak—giving an impassioned, sometimes-angry speech about how there isn’t any need to do this, and how it’d only alienate the league’s most avid fans (those who actually attend games). Bucs owner Joel Glazer, a member of the broadcast committee, countered him, while Steelers owner Art Rooney II and Bears chairman George McCaskey spoke up to back up the points Mara made.
Breer had a blow-by-blow account of owners that spoke up both in favor of the proposal and against it. Breer noted that at times “it got heated” but he did not type that Glazer became emotional. It is not unusual for a meeting of NFL owners to see the temperature of the room rise when debating potential new rules, Breer added.
Apparently, Stinking Panthers owner David Tepper asked for data on viewership of Thursday night games on Amazon. The last few weeks of the season saw downright dreadful viewership, largely due to the fact that games and the teams involved were pathetic.
April 3rd, 2023 at 11:28 am
Idiots!
The players should refuse to play on Thursday!
April 3rd, 2023 at 11:40 am
Why feed Bezo with more millions?
April 3rd, 2023 at 11:48 am
I’ve seen fistfights break out over $20 debts, lol so I can imagine how things can get tense in a room fill of people who are collectively worth billions and topic of discussion can be boiled down to their bottom lines being effected by this proposal.
April 3rd, 2023 at 11:58 am
Your last paragraph set up some point you were making about what happened after temper asked for some data, but you lost the plot. Please complete the story.
April 3rd, 2023 at 12:08 pm
Last paragraph was complete. Amazon ratings late in the season were terrible. Not many football fans wanted to watch the Dixie Chicks play the Stinking Panthers or Josh McDaniel rotten Raiders play the beat-to-hell Rams.
April 3rd, 2023 at 12:09 pm
I’m all in favor of letting the owners and Amazon make more $s.( full disclosure, I worked for Amazon for 6 years and own their stock). Those Thursday nite games were brutal.
April 3rd, 2023 at 12:13 pm
I don’t think this is a good idea. Imagine fans traveling to a game from somewhere else or a lower income family planning for several weeks ahead of time to be able to to afford and take work time off go to a sunday game because of the team the Bucs are playing only to be told, “Hey we are moving your game to a different day because, well… Amazon money.” It’s kind of a screw you to fans IMO, especially for a team that hadn’t had a sellout prior to Brady for a long time and might not have one again. Just my 2 cents.
April 3rd, 2023 at 12:20 pm
Speaking of heated NFL meetings- Once upon a time Daddy Malcolm was promised a Super Bowl IF Tampa built a new state of the art stadium , but alas they tried to end the meeting after said stadium(RayJay) was built without awarding a Super Bowl to Tampa and Daddy Malcom stood up with his shoe in hand and started banging it on the table for effect to the fact that nobody was leaving that room until he got the Super Bowl he was promised. Voila-Tampa Bay receives SB XXXV due to Malcolm having a meltdown and basically threatening the commish to go public if his demands were not met. The Glazers are pretty good owners and Derrick Brooks said he was very happy he got to play for the Glazers during his entire career.
April 3rd, 2023 at 1:08 pm
Limit the flex to the last 4-6 weeks of the season while the Division races heat up.
April 3rd, 2023 at 1:32 pm
So, your team plays on Monday nite, with a Sunday game scheduled the next week. You plan your week out based on playing on a short week.
Now, imagine if your Sunday game got flexed to Thursday nite. It would be HORRIBLE on the entire team!!!
One caller last week on Movin’ The Chains, SXM, mentioned that the NFL should only flex these games when a team plays a division rival 2 weeks in a row – the familiarity would already be there and the game-plan would be easier to develop and implement in a very short week. That idea gained favor, but this current idea of randomly flexing teams to a very short week will certainly reduce the quality of product on the field, and that’s not even getting into rest/recovery time issues for the athletes.
Stupid, stupid idea NFL. Super glad to see it didn’t pass muster and got tabled.
April 3rd, 2023 at 2:14 pm
It does stir up a mess… one thing is flexing from the 1pm to 4 pm Sunday game, or even to the 8pm game, the same day. but flexing Thursday is a whole different animal, how many days prior would they make that call? Some teams use it as a pseudo bye type of week to give players rest. I would agree with R.O. … it would have to come the last half of the season or the last few weeks of the season for it make sense, since at that point we’d know the quality of the teams by that point.
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:02 pm
I only enjoy football from fridays-mondays. Anything else in between is just a money grab.
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:10 pm
i read a couple articles last year about the long tern plan to have games almost every day of the week…
especially after games were pushed into odd days during the pandemic, in order to be completed…
(those games sort of passed the test, i guess)
they spoke of tuesday night football, wednesday night football and friday night football…
without eliminating the already designated sunday, monday and thursday games…
so basically games every day of the week – except saturday – they mentioned that will be a dedicated college football day, and they would not infringe…
after i read about this stuff for a week – it has never been mentioned again…or at least i never heard another peep about it
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:13 pm
I won’t be watching any.
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:19 pm
NFL needs to realize the Thursday night games are the worst addition to this league. Right here is a good point that they are considering flexing games to improve the quality. Kittle said, Sundays are like getting in multiple car wrecks, by mid week, he’s happy to start feeling well enough to move. Too much on the players, I’m surprised NFLPA hasn’t put a foot down to get rid of them. Aside from that, not everyone can get access to these games.
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:20 pm
I won’t say if I am for or against Thursday night games although I watched most of them because it was more football! I WILL say that I thought Amazon did a very admirable job in showing them, though. The camera angles were stellar and the announcing was very good. I didn’t really care if the teams were lousy because MORE FOOTBALL!
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:34 pm
“the announcing was very good”
Kirk Herbstreit is a national treasure. Even back when the NCAA had command of that Thursday night football spot, it was always worth tuning in just to hear Herby call the game even if you had to schlep through 4 quarters of Bowling Green vs. Miami of Ohio
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:38 pm
I dont really watch Thursday football anyhow rather them go back to 16 regular season games as well.
April 3rd, 2023 at 3:43 pm
biden also just announced we are moving to an 8 day week…
i forget what he said the name is for the extra day 🙂
April 3rd, 2023 at 4:27 pm
It doesn’t matter what teams you put on Thursday nights because…
The games always suck, precisely because they’re played on Thursday nights.
April 3rd, 2023 at 4:30 pm
Not to mention, it totally effs over people who are traveling to the games…
Yet another terrible idea from the NFL
April 3rd, 2023 at 4:58 pm
I’d be happy if all of our games were on Sundays at either 1 or 4. I don’t really like night games or short weeks. I guess I get my way about 3/4 of the time.
April 3rd, 2023 at 5:18 pm
Adam..Idenknow?
April 3rd, 2023 at 6:34 pm
I think the solution is very simple. Make Thursday night football, “Rematch TV”.
Start week one on a Thursday with the game between the Super Bowl teams. The next week, AFC championship game rematch. The following week, NFC championship game rematch, and so on and so on.
April 3rd, 2023 at 7:26 pm
What utter nonsense. The turdsday night games are and have been a joke since inception. This is a violent and punishing game. What team can give their best with such short rest. The players should’ve struck over it, but due to their sackless and inept leadership, as well as a bunch of players who buy 200k earrings, the league has them by the short ones. Get a real union. The MLBPA has one. That’s gone too far in the other direction. But, if these guys would stash away some cash and not give in at every cba, this would change. I get the opposing arguments. The average NFL career is around 4 years. But instead of thinking about the short term, current players could benefit generations of players to come. The guys with shorter careers could be taken care of with a much better pension program. Its such a short sighted approach. Delores smith is and always will be a joke for what he’s done
April 3rd, 2023 at 8:42 pm
I hate Thursday games
April 3rd, 2023 at 11:14 pm
It’s great for the fans, but at some point can we call out the NFL and their nonsense about being all about “player safety“?
Games in Europe…
Flex scheduling for Thursday and Sunday night…
Potential games on Tuesday and Wednesday…
Less and Less practice…
There is nothing about any of that that gives a **** about player safety
April 4th, 2023 at 12:00 am
Judging by the voting, it’s going to happen eventually whether we agree or not.
April 4th, 2023 at 11:19 am
The League needed to force the Cable Companies to carry the NFL Network. That is the only reason we have Thursday night football.