Paying $1 billion a season to license the NFL's coveted "Thursday Night Football" franchise last season, Amazon Prime Video dealt with an absolute turkey of a game schedule in year 1.
And that showed up in the total audience performance, which was off 41% from the season prior, when many of the games where still broadcast free over the air on Fox. (Although younger demo performances turned out much better.)
With only one game after week 8 last season matching up two eventual playoff teams, things got so uncompetitive that play-by-play announcer Al Michaels at one point described the process of making the games interesting to viewers as like selling used cars.
At NFL meetings in March, the league toyed with a flexible schedule that would allow late-season matchups to be determined closer to their game date, giving Amazon and the NFL a chance to more carefully handpick better matchups based on a season's worth of performance data.
That plan was ultimately nixed. The league formulated its schedule the way it had been doing it all along, and it published the results Thursday. Below are the matchups Amazon ended up receiving.
Will Thursday nights be more competitive? Well, only five of the 16 matchups feature two teams that both made the playoffs last year, and six of the games feature no 2022 post-season contenders at all.
There are consecutive early-season matchups that catch our eye: The first regular season "TNF" game on Sept. 14 has the NFC North defending champion Minnesota Vikings visiting the NFC East defending champion and Super Bowl runner-up Philadelphia Eagles; a week later, two more NFC teams coming off impressive playoff runs, the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers, lock up; and in week 3, the up-and-coming Detroit Lions visit the new-look post-Aaron Rodgers Green Bay Packers in an NFC Central rivalry game.
There are a few other highlights worth mentioning: In Week 10, the No. 1 pick in this year's draft, Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, and his new team, the Carolina Panthers visit the Chicago Bears'; there's the week 11 game between the Cincinnati Bangles and Baltimore Ravens that's a rematch of a surprisingly spry AFC first-round playoff game from January; and there are two chances to see the aging but Hall of Fame-bound Rodgers quarterback his new team, the New York Jets. (Nobody's guaranteeing anything there.)
Other than that, there are lots of potential ... turkeys. And turkeys can't fly. Ask yourself the same question you ask every pre-season: Will the Chicago Bears ever be any good again, even with Justin Fields? Prime Video customers will be able to see the Bears twice this season, whether they want to or not.
And does anyone outside of Central Florida care to see the rebuilding Tampa Bay Buccaneers visit the perennially powerful Buffalo Bills in week 8, sans Tom Brady?
Of course, we'll have to get into the season to see how it all shakes out. Here's the schedule, as provided by Amazon:
Complete 2023 Thursday Night Football Schedule (all times EDT):
TNF Tonight pregame coverage begins each Thursday at 7 p.m.
* Preseason game – Thursday, Aug. 24: Indianapolis Colts at Philadelphia Eagles
Week 2 - Sept. 14: Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles
Week 3 - Sept. 21: New York Giants at San Francisco 49ers
Week 4 - Sept. 28: Detroit Lions at Green Bay Packers
Week 5 - Oct. 5: Chicago Bears at Washington Commanders
Week 6 - Oct. 12: Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs
Week 7 - Oct. 19: Jacksonville Jaguars at New Orleans Saints
Week 8 - Oct. 26: Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Buffalo Bills
Week 9 - Nov. 2: Tennessee Titans at Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 10 - Nov. 9: Carolina Panthers at Chicago Bears
Week 11 - Nov. 16: Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens
Week 12 (Black Friday) - Friday, Nov. 24: Miami Dolphins at New York Jets
Week 13 - Nov. 30: Seattle Seahawks at Dallas Cowboys
Week 14 - Dec. 7: New England Patriots at Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 15 - Dec. 14: Los Angeles Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders
Week 16 - Dec. 21: New Orleans Saints at Los Angeles Rams
Week 17 - Dec. 28: New York Jets at Cleveland Browns
