When the Pittsburgh Steelers arrived at Acrisure Stadium in advance for their game Thursday evening, it might have felt as if they’d just left.
After all, those players and coaches had just left that facility less than 100 hours earlier.
Furthermore, it was the second time in a five-week span the Steelers hosted a pair of games just four days apart. That’d never happened before in franchise history. For that matter, playing two home games over a five-day span had only happened a total of four times over the first 90 seasons the team existed before this autumn.
Through modifications to scheduling rules that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell helped steer through some contentious objections amongst league ranks, in 2023 the league abandoned its 17-year-old policy of requiring each team to play one — and only one — Thursday game on three days rest each season. Instead, “Thursday Night Football” became open to more flexible scheduling.
After all, Amazon didn’t pay $1 billion a year to stream Panthers-Falcons or Commanders-Bears (two of the more snooze-worthy matchups during the debut season of Amazon Prime coverage last year).
That meant higher-profile and (in theory, anyway) better teams meeting on what is a showcase primetime stage for the league and a more palatable return on Amazon’s billion-dollar investment.
“It’s fun, a great experience,” Steelers receiver Diontae Johnson said of playing on Thursday nights. “Especially for the young guys who never got a chance to play on Thursday or Monday night football, whatever it is. It gives us a chance to show the world what we are capable of.”
Goodell and the league also won the right to “flex” Thursday (and Monday) night games, a first in the history of either of those packages.
All of a sudden in 2023, after years of complaints from fans about the quality of the play and from players on the physical rigors of Thursday football, teams could be scheduled to play twice on three days’ rest — sometimes, on less than a month’s advance notice.
“It’s tough on your body, but this is what we signed up for,” Johnson said. “We know it comes with it. We can’t make any excuses. There are other teams that get to be in the same position as us. It’s how you go about the situation and how you take care of your body to prepare for that game.”
The post-merger NFL began staging periodic Thursday night games in 1980, but they did not become a weekly part of the annual schedule until 2006. Data has shown the games tend to be lower-scoring and that home teams have a bigger advantage than in games played on more traditional rest for both teams.
The Steelers are emblematic of the latter. Their Nov. 2 win against the Tennessee Titans improved their all-time home Thursday record to 9-2 at home. That’s a stark contrast from the Steelers’ 3-11 Thursday record in away games.
Headed into Thursday’s game against New England, the Steelers’ .818 franchise Thursday home winning percentage is the highest of any team. It included 7-1 under Tomlin, albeit one of those was a season opener and therefore not a traditional Thursday game on three days’ rest.
“There is not a lot of game-planning where things change,” longtime Steelers defensive captain Cameron Heyward said of playing on a Thursday after a Sunday game. “It comes down to execution and mistake-free football, winning the turnover battle. I think when you combine all those things together, the team that does that on a short week really benefits from that.”
During each of the previous five occasions in franchise history before Thursday that the Steelers played a home game four days after hosting another game, they won.
The Steelers split the only two occasions they played a Thursday road game after playing on the road four days earlier. Both involved a Thanksgiving night game: a loss at the Baltimore Ravens in 2013 and a win at the Indianapolis Colts three years later.
On each of those occasions, the Steelers won that Sunday game played three days before it. This season, they lost each of their Sunday-before-Thursday games.
“I will say that you appreciate the short week in the sense that you get that bad taste out of your mouth quicker,” interim offensive coordinator Eddie Faulkner said, “and you’re not waiting until Sunday.”
Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris by email at cadamski@triblive.com or via Twitter .
"though" - Google News
December 08, 2023 at 09:28AM
https://ift.tt/dkGRIvB
Steelers welcome Thursday night spotlight, though short turnaround presents challenges - TribLIVE
"though" - Google News
https://ift.tt/BHKJfW8
https://ift.tt/0gRxqCu
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Steelers welcome Thursday night spotlight, though short turnaround presents challenges - TribLIVE"
Post a Comment