NEWSLETTER
The NFL does a marvelous job of making sure it is always in your news cycle. And when it comes to scheduling its games, the league playing on Thanksgiving and around Halloween is engrained into our football livelihoods.
But the NFL trying to push a Christmas triple-header feels like a bit much:
It looks like the NFL is going to try and take over Christmas this year: The league is planning a December 25 tripleheader for the first time ever.
Wonder how Santa feels about this #Christmas #SantaClaus #NFLSchedule https://t.co/rMBFv3Pjql
— John Breech (@johnbreech) April 22, 2022
In an interview on the “Sal Sports and Stuff” podcast, Mike North, the NFL’s Vice President of Broadcasting — who is partly in charge of piecing together the league’s schedule — dropped a nugget about the NFL scheduling a triple-header for Christmas Day (which falls on a Sunday this year).
Traditionally, the NFL has played this slate of games on Christmas Eve in order to avoid Christmas Day games. But avoiding Christmas altogether doesn’t seem to be the case this year. Because while the league still seems to be planning on most of the games being played on Saturday, it sounds like the league is ready fill out with a regular slate of games on Saturday, including a primetime affair on Christmas Eve, then following that with three games on Sunday.
Don’t get me wrong. I love football on the holidays, but this seems like a bit much. And only partially because the NBA all-day Christmas happenings is as much of a tradition in my household as baking cookies for Santa before bed and waking up early to oven roast a lechon as part of an all-day cooking fest. And I’m not one to break traditions. I’m willing to be swayed, but I don’t love this development.
In the end, on the one hand, maybe this will be a cool new thing we get to test drive this winter. But on the other hand, spending another holiday with the Bears isn’t necessarily ok every fan’s wish list. The NFL schedule comes out on May 12. We’ll see how it shakes out.
