John Madden, the definitive voice of NFL broadcasts for so many years, remains a powerful voice and he plainly spelled out just what is wrong with the league’s foray into Thursday night games and why its TV ratings have slumped.
The problem, as the Hall of Famer sees it, is that there aren’t enough good, competitive teams for all the TV slots – “an early Sunday window, a late Sunday window, a Sunday night window, a Monday night window, a Thursday night window” – the NFL now has to fill each week. That Thursday night game in particular is a problem for him.
“Something has to be done about Thursday Night Football,” the 80-year-old former Raiders coach said in a podcast with the Bay Area News Group. “It just doesn’t work. It’s not only a fan thing, it’s a team thing. It’s a safety thing. It’s a competitive thing. It doesn’t work. I know about money, and I know about business. Maybe you have to tweak stuff a little more. To help teams, maybe you get a bye the week before.”
Madden, who walked away after the 2009 season, still wields influence in the league and even fans who may more readily associate his name with a video game pay attention to his observations. He thought it was particularly unfair that the Washington Redskins had to play a Sunday night home game, then travel to Dallas to play on Thanksgiving Day. The Cowboys had a 1 p.m. home game on Sunday.
“That’s wrong. That’s an oops,” Madden said. “You play a team on Sunday night and make them travel and play on Thursday. I remember in my coaching days, as players get older, it takes them longer to heal up from a Sunday game, and guys weren’t ready to play until Thursday or Friday.”
Madden has battled a number of health issues during 2016 and he’s now doing well. Although he joked about not knowing what a podcast is, he remains on top of the league and teams in the Bay Area, where he lives.