Philadelphia Eagles receiver AJ Brown is not your typical football player, and with his unique mixture of talent, emotion, and intelligence he is a rare NFL star. But even he has his reservations about the league and its product.
His main issue of late is the NFL’s “Monday Night Football” game, which is a prime time game that captures the attention of all football fans because it is normally the only football game played on Monday. It’s a great selling point for the NFL, the highest-grossing league of the major American sports.
It also is a tradition that dates back to Sept. 21, 1970, for football fans, with a game between the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns. It was clear from that first game that “MNF” would become a staple of the American sports viewing experience, as it captured 33 percent of the viewing audience.
AJ Brown Has Issues With MNF
Brown understands that, but what he doesn’t appreciate is how the NFL isn’t taking their ultimate product, the players, into consideration when making these NFL schedules and making teams play on Monday night.
“It most definitely does, honestly,” he said to reporters of the physical toll these short week games can take on the players. “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. 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.”
Understandably, these are also words of frustration from Brown, because his Eagles suffered an upset loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night this week, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t sincere.
For professionals who’ve been playing high-level, high-contact football for years, a lot of players share the same sentiment about “Monday Night Football” and “Thursday Night Football” and the toll that these short weeks can have on their body.
Starting from Monday, some teams only have six days to reinvigorate their bodies and prepare for their Sunday slate games, while if you play on Sunday, you might only get 3 days to get ready for your Thursday night game, and in all these games you’re hitting, running, jumping, and colliding with others at game speed.
It’s not a favorable position to be in as a football player.
Why Don’t Players Complain More?
So why don’t players and coaches make a bigger deal out of this? The answer is because this helps the NFL make a lot of money.
According to CBS Sports, Brown nor any other player should expect any radical decisions regarding short schedule turnovers any time soon.
“The NFL’s current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the NFL Players Association dictates the current schedule and runs through 2030, and this year the league’s new media rights agreement has only expanded the focus on Monday night contests, with ESPN broadcasting a multigame “Monday Night Football” slate.” CBS Sports writes.
Brown understands this, which is why he won’t turn this into a campaign to remove MNF just yet, and instead will use the full week he has to prepare for New York. Especially because every game is a must win for Philadelphia with the Dallas Cowboys sharing the same record as them in the NFC East.
