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Thanksgiving weekend is homecoming weekend as many people are returning home for the first time in months from school or perhaps a job that has displaced them from family and loved ones. For college football, it's also rivalry weekend as the Michigans and Ohio States and Notre Dames and USCs of the collegiate gridiron world renew hostilities.
The following is not necessarily a new idea but we are going to keep hammering away at it until it does become reality. If it works for college football, why not the NFL where the league can take advantage of some natural inter-conference geographic rivalries that already are and rivalries-to-be in a annual renewal of these matchups on Thanksgiving weekend:
•Oakland Raiders v. San Francisco 49ers
•NY Giants v. NY York Jets
•Houston Texans v. Dallas Cowboys
•Kansas City Chiefs v. St. Louis Rams
•Washington Redskins v. Baltimore Ravens
•Philadelphia Eagles v. Pittsburgh Steelers
•San Diego Chargers v. Arizona Cardinals
•Jacksonville Jaguars v. Atlanta Falcons
•Tampa Bay Buccaneers v. Miami Dolphins
•Carolina Panthers v. Tennessee Titans
•Cincinnati Bengals v. Cleveland Browns (This is the only in-conference match-up but it’s one that’s gotta be. Call it the Paul Brown Bowl)
And in a happy and unintended consequence, two of the left over teams are the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots. These two recently-minted rivals can be matched up each year as well, leaving only 8 teams out of the party for the near-future.
We urge NFL commish, Roger Goodell to make this happen. Now that the NFL has flexibility in the televised games later in the season, put the most attractive match-ups on your prime time games on Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights. It makes sense, it would be a lot of fun and it would create a huge amount of buzz upon which the NFL could capitalize.
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6 comments:
all for philly/pitt.
grew up in philly-i generally cheered for pitt teams when they were doing well(except for u pitt). i thought they did the same for us.
then i went to psu, and found out that the western part of the state hates the eastern part. especially philly.
it's been very un-Christian since then.
Your matchups here don't work. And you forgot the black and blue division, NFC North.
San Diego's rival is Denver. Oakland's rival is Kansas City. Dallas' is Washington. Jet's s don't really have a rival, just serveral teams that don't pity them.
Chicago/Green Bay is probably the biggest rivalry in the NFL. Detroit is similarly pitied like the Jets.
I'd says Indy and Baltimore, since Indy stole Baltimore's team.
MN, you're missing the point. All those teams you mentioned play each other anyway. What I am hoping to create are out-of-division rivalries based on goegraphic locale.
How it is that the Jets and Giants and then the Niners and Raiders don't play each other every year is inexplicable.
Jacksonville and Atlanta? Please. It's New Orleans and Atlanta, with the winner hosting the Confederate flag and singing, "Dixie".
Zooooooom! That's the sound of your post flying directly over your readers' heads. Has it really taken you this long to write this down? Feels like it was forever ago that we talked about this. Or was that baseball?
I did a horrible job in explaining what I wanted to accomplish in the body of the post. Again, Oak-Denver, Dallas-Washington... these are traditional in-division rivalries that are played twice a year and that have nothing to do with geographic locale.
Why not, however, have a Thanksgiving weekend where the St. Louis Rams are playing the KC Chiefs? Yes, both teams suck but you would generate a degree of regional animosity in a "Battle of I-70" matchup. Again, how it is that the Jets are not playing the Giants once a year, every year, escapes my logic.
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