Count Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown among those who’d prefer to not play on Monday Night Football.
In fact, with the Eagles coming off a 20–17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks this past Monday, Brown is calling for the elimination of Monday night games in their entirety, and his reasoning makes sense.
“Because it’s a short week and then right after the game you only have a certain amount of time just for your body to recover, and it speeds up the process, and that adds … wear and tear with practice,” Brown told DraftKings on Thursday. “So it gets difficult. The Monday night games, I think, they shoulda took [them] out. I know it’s cool, everybody watching you on Monday night, but the turnaround after that, it’s difficult, especially if you leave the game a little banged up.”
Brown is not the first (and certainly won’t be the last) to openly discuss the toll that a short week takes on the body of an NFL player. However, the NFL is the most prominent American sports league and a money-making machine. As such, the league knows few bounds in terms of putting its product on television as much as possible.
Monday night football? Check.
Thursday night football? Check.
Black Friday football? Check.
Saturday night football as soon as the college football regular season ends? Check.
And of course, the usual Sunday NFL slate which remains the sport’s bellwether.
The NFL has gone to great lengths over the years to improve its rules to reduce the risk of head injuries and make an inherently violent game safer. But the NFL is highly unlikely to remove non-Sunday games from its schedule, even if it results in a short week to the detriment of the players who participate in those games.
It’s a bold call by Brown, but one that makes sense for player safety. Then again, it’s likely to never happen.
