The NFL schedule can’t please everyone all the time. One team, the New York Giants, and their co-owner, John Mara, are particularly upset about how 2022 will play out.
The Giants will be home to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. The game is on Sept. 26, which coincides with the second night of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.
The Giants requested the NFL avoid scheduling their Week 3 game this season late on Sunday or Monday night. The contest with the Cowboys means Jewish fans observing the holiday will not be able to attend.
John Mara 'not happy' Giants are playing 'Monday Night Football' on Rosh Hashanah https://t.co/3uIsksp9am pic.twitter.com/gMzLuU6JZa
— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) May 17, 2022
“I am well aware of that and not happy about it,” John Mara, the Giants co-owner, told The New York Post on Tuesday. “I made my feelings known to the league as soon as I saw the schedule. We have always requested the league take the Jewish High Holy Days into consideration when formulating our schedule. Not sure why it happened this year.”
A league exec, SVP of broadcasting Howard Katz, said Mara did make the request.
“We are never able to accommodate every request,” said Katz, who heads up the panel that puts the schedule together.
“Mr. Mara absolutely this year and every year when the Jewish holidays fall on football days, he always asks to avoid the Jewish holidays. He certainly did. In this particular case, we were not able to accommodate that request.”
The Jets, who share MetLife Stadium with the Giants, put in a similar request and the league obliged by having them play the Cincinnati Bengals at home with a 1 o’clock kickoff.
The game will be over by sundown when Rosh Hashanah begins.
Katz thinks the situation was unavoidable.
“But this is on me, this is not on John Mara. There are flaws in every schedule, we’ve never seen a perfect schedule,” he told The Post. “This was a flaw. We were gonna play a Monday night game so Jewish fans somewhere were going to be conflicted and have to make decisions on whether or not to attend the game or watch the game or not. It turned out that it was really unfortunate that it happened in New York. But it was going to happen somewhere.”