Thursday Night Football: Can Saints vs. Cowboys Create a New TNF Scheduling Template?

Football is awesome. Saturdays with Alabama, Clemson, and Oklahoma. Sundays with the Patriots, Colts, and 49ers. Between Thursday and Monday nights every fall, there are thousands of games.

But Thursday night NFL games can be tough. Players aren't at their best because they played three days earlier. Coaches' and athletes' brains haven't been able to take in the game plan information that they'd usually have five to seven days to create and absorb. And, though this year seems to have been a bit of an exception, games can get sluggish, and offenses sometimes disappear. But tonight, when the Saints visit the Cowboys, there won't be any schedule-induced fatigue.

That's because New Orleans and Dallas played a full week ago.

So far this year, there have been 14 Thursday football games played, including the day games that kicked off before the Falcons and Saints played on Thanksgiving Night. With the exception of Week 1, when the Eagles and Falcons were coming off seven-month byes, each team this season playing a Thursday Night Football game also played three days prior, on the previous Sunday.

Enter tonight's Saints-Cowboys matchup.

With the Cowboys playing their traditional Thanksgiving Day game in Week 12, and the Saints kicking off just a few hours later, both teams have had the requisite six days to fully recover from last week and prepare to play again tonight. I think it would be better, and safer, to have two well-rested, well-prepared teams facing off every Thursday night.

I know this is a lot easier in theory than in practice. The NFL schedulers have a difficult job creating a perfect 16-game schedule for 32 teams, each of whom has just 17 weeks to play a specific set of 13 opponents. Imagine having to add a new wrinkle: any team playing on a Thursday needs to have either a bye or another Thursday game the week prior to kicking off on TNF. 

Without actually making up a schedule, I'm going to guess that such a thing is impossible, at least for every week. I think it would be great, though, if the schedule-makers could throw a few wrinkles into their work. Thanksgiving, for instance, is one of the most sacred and traditional of NFL holidays, when Detroit and Dallas each play a home game. Keeping that custom should be an important agenda item for the NFL. Maybe the Lions and Cowboys can have a bye week before they have their holiday matchups, or maybe they could even play each other on Thursday Night Football the week before the fourth Thursday of November, giving them a full week of rest and practice prior to their Thanksgiving games. Hey, it's an idea, one that could help solve any safety issues and keep the newest NFL tradition of Thursday Night Football going. Remember, football is awesome!