Thursday Night Football: Worst Games
The Thursday schedule is heavy on divisional games with a short turnaround, and that can lead to some serious duds. The variance in the Thursday night games is wild, and no game exemplifies that more than 49ers-Cardinals in Week 9.
Those two teams are picking 1-2 in the draft next week and combined to win just seven games, yet they are facing off in primetime on FOX during November sweeps. That doesn’t exactly scream wise decision from the scheduling gods.
The AFC West matchups are also tough with the two top teams, the Chiefs and Chargers, facing the two lesser teams in Thursday nighters in Weeks 7 and 10. Thankfully the Broncos and Raiders are home for those games, giving them a slightly better chance to be competitive in those matchups.
This is also the part of the program where we address the two Thursday night games that will air exclusively on NFL Network: Bucs-Panthers in Week 2 and Titans-Jaguars in Week 3. Neither game is particularly attractive, hence why Fox wanted no part of broadcasting them over the air, but the argument could be made that Bucs-Panthers is a significantly better matchup than 49ers-Cardinals, which (again) is airing during the all-important sweeps period.