The NFL’s 2023 schedule release is expected to happen later this week and one question for every team is how many prime-time games they get.
Traditionally, every team gets one Thursday night game.
However, according to NBC Sports’ Peter King, because the league can schedule teams for 2 Thursday games in a season, teams like the Arizona Cardinals could end up not playing on Thursday night.
Why?
The league wants those games to succeed on Amazon Prime Video, its new exclusive Thursday night broadcast partner since last season.
There have been some stinkers of matchups and the league wants to remedy that, so expected good teams and teams with big national followings could get two Thursday games while less popular teams expected not to be good (like the Cardinals), might not have to play on Thursday.
The Cardinals will not even have any star power to start the year with quarterback Kyler Murray expected to miss at least part of the start of the season in his recovery from a torn ACL.
Players won’t miss playing on Thursday but it does give them less national attention.
King specifically mentioned the Cardinals as a team who could get left out of Thursday games.
It makes sense. On a national level, who wants to watch a Cardinals team expected to struggle and and has uncertainty about the return of its start quarterback?
The Cardinals might end up with no nationally televised games in 2023 if they get snubbed from the Thursday schedule.
Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
