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This year’s schedule has been so bad it defies belief.
Who’s hyped for Week 10? Okay, now who’s hyped to watch Panthers vs. Bears on Thursday Night Football?
We’re rounding the corner into the back-end of the season and it’s another incredible week with some of the worst primetime football imaginable. Of the three major national games in Week 10 they’re barely watchable, even for fans of the respective teams.
Thursday Night Football: Carolina Panthers vs. Chicago Bears
Sunday Night Football: New York Jets vs. Las Vegas Raiders
Monday Night Football: Denver Broncos vs. Buffalo Bills
If you’re doing the math at home those are three games with a combined total record of 19-and-32 (.372). The best game of the week that could actually be competitive is Panthers vs. Bears, and they’re 3-14 combined.
Yes, primetime NFL has been a total waste of time in 2023. The schedule makers keep subjecting us to horrific football week after week, and even people employed to cover these games are starting to lose it. Just ask Peyton and Eli Manning, who had so little to say about Chargers vs. Jets on Monday Night Football in Week 9 that they imagined what Trevor Lawrence would look like with Peyton’s hairline instead of bothering with the game.
This isn’t in the final two minutes of the game either. There were over 10 minutes left in the second quarter and the play clock was running on an important third down!
Nobody can blame the Manningcast though, because the Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night games this season have been so bad they defy belief. The schedules were crafted trying to project who might be good in 2023, and it’s completely blown up in the NFL’s face. As a result the best football of the week is often locked to regional markets, with national audiences getting this instead.
On any given night of primetime football you’re likely to see barely over .500 teams, in a game that isn’t very close, which isn’t exciting as a result. If we classify a “good” game as being one between two teams with winning records that has a close finish then across the entire 2023 slate of primetime we have these games:
Sunday Night Football — Week 1: Lions 21, Chiefs 20
Monday Night Football — Week 1: Jets 22, Bills 16
Monday Night Football — Week 2: Steelers 26, Browns 22
Monday Night Football — Week 6: Cowboys 20, Chargers 17
Monday Night Football — Week 7: Vikings 22, 49ers 17
In total only five games of 30 on primetime this season have been “good” for anyone beyond a local fan market. You might as well never tune into Thursday Night Football because all the games have sucked, while Sunday Night Football is almost always disappointing.
You might think this makes Monday Night Football worth it, considering it’s given us four good games this season, but even then because of the early-season two game slate on Monday only 33 percent of games on football’s biggest night have been worth watching.
Week 11 begins the NFL’s free reign to flex scheduling, but for some reason the league has already announced it won’t move Vikings vs. Broncos off Sunday Night Football in Week 11, despite it being destined to be a horrible game. Any hopes of flex saving us, much like the NFL itself, will be disappointing.
Fans have had to ensure absolute garbage this season and no relief is in sight. We’ll need to watch trash in Week 10 and hope to get some sort of relief to close out the year, because it’s simply a profound waste of time to watch national games at this point.
