This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Charles Curtis is filling in for Andy Nesbitt.
There was Thursday night’s Commanders-Bears stinkfest.
Last week’s 12-9 Colts win over the Broncos. Bleh.
I’d throw the Bengals beating the Dolphins in which Tua Tagovailoa somehow played — and suffered a horrible head injury — just days after a blow to his head.
Yep, Thursday Night Football stinks. And it’s nothing new.
We’ve been writing about this for a while. The great John Madden called it out in 2016. We’ve heard countless players complaining about it. Former FTW NFL writer Steven Ruiz detailed all the reasons why in 2017.
It’s just a bad product. Sending out two teams that might have played just four days earlier to play again results in sloppy play and injuries is horrible. The matchups? Next week we get Saints-Cardinals! Eagles-Texans in Week 8! How bout that Falcons-Panthers matchup the following week?
Thing is: The NFL doesn’t care.
They just made a reported $1 billion — with a B! — a year off Amazon. And Jeff Bezos’s company can rake in the cash with Prime subscriptions, so they’re more than happy to have any kind of NFL football on its streaming service, no matter how bad it is.
So it’s not going to get better. And viewers tune in for a variety of reasons, some of which are that any NFL football is better than no NFL football at all. Look at all the countless complaints on Twitter about how bad Thursday’s game was.
We’re stuck, it’s the worst, and we’ll be complaining about it most every Thursday. At least we’re in it together.
Quick hits: Phil Mickelson, back at it again … The best fantasy hoops rookies … Julio Rodriguez had to laugh … and more.
— Phil Mickelson is back to his lying, manipulative ways and it’s sadly not a surprise at all.
— The 10 best fantasy basketball rookies to draft.
— Julio Rodriguez had to laugh after an incredible play by Jose Altuve.
— Bryan Kalbrosky spoke with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander about fashion and the Thunder.
