According to a Wednesday press release put out by the NFL, the league will have CBS produce and televise Thursday Night Football for the 2014 season.
CBS will apparently air eight early season games that will be simulcast on NFL Network. In addition, the NFL Network will also televise eight late-season games leading up to the playoffs. 14 of the games will air on Thursday nights with two late-season games being aired on Saturday.
Jim Nance and Phil Simms will reportedly call the Thursday games in 2014 and they will replace Brad Nessler and Mike Mayock. However, NFL Network hosts and analysts will still be part of the pregame, halftime and postgame coverage of every game.
If you are like me, you likely noticed how poor the overall quality of football that was played in 2013 on Thursday nights. This was probably to be expected due to the short week of preparation that the teams had for these games. From a safety standpoint, one would think that it’s not in the best interest of the players to have such a short down-time in between games, but safety comes second to revenue, obviously.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still watch the games, but I really wish that the league would move away from Thursday night games and perhaps add a Saturday night game instead.
