The NFL flexing ‘Thursday Night Football’ games is bad news for fans with non-refundable flights and hotel rooms.
Last week, the NFL announced that the Los Angeles Chargers’ game against the Denver Broncos in Week 16 had been flexed from Sunday, Dec. 22 to Thursday, Dec. 19. It marked the first Thursday Night Football flex in NFL history.
Because it involved changing the day of the game, not just the time, the NFL made the decision with a 28-day heads up for fans (the usual flex window is 12 days). Having nearly a month to change plans won’t help fans who had booked non-refundable flights and hotels to attend the Broncos-Chargers game on the original date (or fans who planned to attend the originally-scheduled TNF game).
May Trask, the former CEO of the Raiders who now works for CBS Sports, has suggested that the NFL should reimburse fans when a TNF game is flexed.
“There are business reasons for flexing games, but I believe it appropriate to reimburse fans who can’t adjust to a schedule flex for reasonable out of pocket costs,” Trask tweeted on Sunday.
Thank you @fangsbites for watching TOPS @CBSSportsNet – as I shared this morning, there are business reasons for flexing games, but I believe it appropriate to reimburse fans who can’t adjust to a schedule flex for reasonable out of pocket costs. https://t.co/Z96zG4c5ZE
The NFL is unlikely to refund anyone. Traveling fans would be wise to only book refundable flights and not prepay for hotels in the second half of the season because the NFL’s flex scheduling caters to television ratings, not fans traveling to attend games in person.
The recent dustup between Dennis Allen and his Saints players didn’t surprise his former coworker Amy Trask, who saw the same thing with the Raiders:
At least one person wasn’t shocked by Dennis Allen’s very public split with New Orleans Saints players in the final minutes of the 2023 season: Amy Trask, Allen’s former coworker with the Raiders and current co-host of the What the Football podcast with Suzy Shuster.
Trask spent 26 years in the Raiders’ front office, spending much of her career as the team’s chief executive officer before resigning midway through Allen’s three-year stint as head coach. She wasn’t a fan of the Saints promoting Allen to head coach in 2022, and she also criticized Allen’s decision to bring ex-Raiders coach Jon Gruden to training camp last summer.
Now she’s shared some insight on her experience with Allen, who Trask characterized as a “dismissive, derisive” presence. After Allen introduced himself to the organization in an early staff meeting, Trask says, employees lined up at her door with complaints.
That became a trend. Allen’s leadership style continued to rub people the wrong way, being described as “uninspiring” at best and “rude” at worst. As Trask reflected, Allen wasn’t someone even the Raiders’ veteran players were willing to embrace.
“It appeared to me, and I’m not putting words in a player’s mouth, but players would do the minimum for him,” Trask said, contrasting Allen with coaches that players would run through a wall for. “Nobody’s running through a wall for him.”
The incident this all centers on, of course, featured Saints backup quarterback Jameis Winston agreeing with his teammates to change the game’s final play call. After being told to kneel out the clock at the 1-yard line and seal a blowout win over the Atlanta Falcons, Winston and the rest of the offense went rogue, audibling into a run for Jamaal Williams to score a touchdown. It’s the kind of insubordination you don’t see in the NFL.
Shuster drew the comparison to other coaches who do connect with their players — whether that’s longtime leaders like Bill Belichick or first-year standout DeMeco Ryans. Trask continued, “I had the sense, and some players shared with me, that’s not what they experienced with Dennis. And look, we all grow up, we all grow, I thought he could be better in New Orleans. And I may be the only person to tell you this, but when I saw (the audible) in New Orleans, I was not the slightest bit surprised. Any other coach, I’d be surprised.”
Allen’s two-year run as the Saints’ head coach has been hard to watch. The team finished one game over .500 this year and still has a losing record with him on top of the organization, missing the playoffs in back-to-back seasons after he took the job with a promise of continued postseason success. Unable to manage big egos, Allen has created rifts with fan-favorite players like C.J. Gardner-Johnson (traded last year), Marshon Lattimore (likely to be traded this year), Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara (who may also be on their way out).
But he’s here to stay. Allen has already said he expects to return as head coach in 2024, and general manager Mickey Loomis wouldn’t have let him go speak to reporters after the season ended if that weren’t the case. Stubborn to prove he didn’t hire the wrong coach, Loomis appears set to stay the course. Maybe it’s just going to take three years before Allen finds a way to win the worst division in pro football.
Former Raiders executive Amy Trask shared a perceptive take to news of the Saints hosting Jon Gruden for a consultant visit at their facility:
Res Ipsa Loquitor (learned that in law school) was my immediate thought upon reading that Dennis Allen brought in Jon Gruden to help the @saints – and before anyone replies "but, but, but," remember this: I worked with both men. https://t.co/t5FQZAvQu8pic.twitter.com/J3iquFXgnU
Well that’s interesting. Former Oakland Raiders chief executive officer Amy Trask had a low opinion of the New Orleans Saints’ decision to hire her old coworker Dennis Allen as head coach last year, and she doesn’t appear to be reconsidering her stance in the wake of Allen’s decision to bring in disgraced ex-Raiders coach Jon Gruden to visit the facility.
“Res Ipsa Loquitor (learned that in law school),” Trask wrote from her official Twitter account, “and before anyone replies ‘but, but, but,’ remember this: I worked with both men.”
It’s safe to say that Trask knows both Allen and Gruden well from their time together in the Raiders organization, or she at least believes she knows the content of their character. The Latin phrase she’s referencing means “the thing speaks for itself” and is a legal principle that says negligence may be inferred from the very nature of an accident in the absence of direct evidence.
So what did she mean by this? Trask disagreed with the Saints’ decision to promote Allen to head coach, and it appears she isn’t a fan of Allen’s decision to fly Gruden in for a consultation visit. But she wasn’t necessarily surprised Allen thought it would be a good idea: the act speaks for itself.
Allen has already defended his decision by saying he believed Gruden’s input could be valuable to the team, given his experience coaching Derek Carr before, and he isn’t worried about the pall that might be cast by linking the team to such a controversial figure. Gruden resigned after emails surfaced displaying flagrantly bigoted behavior. But if Gruden’s input can help the Saints win games, it’s a price Allen is willing to pay.
The news got buried a little in the fervor over the NFL scouting combine, but the Detroit Lions addition of new assistant defensive line coach Cameron Davis did not go unnoticed. The Lions hired Davis over the weekend to join the staff.
One of Davis’ prior coaching stops was with the Raiders organization when the team was still based in Oakland. The CEO of the Raiders at the time, Amy Trask, went on Twitter and let the praise flow on the former team coaching intern.
Trask noted that Davis, “impressed me tremendously” and she is “thrilled the Lions hired him” and “Lions fans should be thrilled as well”.
I met Cameron when he interned with the @Raiders – he impressed me tremendously from the moment I met him, he still does – I have rooted and cheered for him to succeed since meeting him, I always shall – I am thrilled the @Lions hired him, Lions fans should be thrilled as well. https://t.co/ezRQfcXIaD
The stint with the Raiders, back in 2012-2013, was Davis’ first post-college job. He’s since moved on to coaching at several college programs, most recently the DL coach at Lamar in Texas.
Former Raiders CEO Amy Trask resigned midway through Dennis Allen’s first run as a head coach, and she had an interesting response to news of him being promoted in New Orleans:
"People learn on the job. They grow up on the job. They evolve. … I hope for the sake of the Saints organization and Saints fans that Dennis learned and grew and grew up as well."
There aren’t many executives who lasted longer with one team than Amy Trask. The former Raiders chief executive officer was promoted to the job after working in Al Davis’ front office for ten years, and she held the title for the next 16 years — resigning on May 11, 2013, midway through Dennis Allen’s run as head coach of the black and silver.
Now an analyst for CBS Sports, Trask shared her take on news of Allen being named Sean Payton’s successor with the New Orleans Saints. And it’s a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.
“Let me be very, very clear and straightforward about this: people learn on the job. They grow up on the job. They evolve, they learn from mistakes, they can get better,” Trask said during a Tuesday interview. “I hope for the sake of the Saints organization and Saints fans that Dennis learned and grew and grew up as well. I was not surprised by the hire, but I was surprised — is that a saying, like ‘funny, but not funny?'”
Trask took care not to spill the beans on any specific experience or incident with Allen, but it’s clear that there isn’t much fondness there. Hired as the Raiders’ coach in 2012, following just one year as a defensive coordinator with the Denver Broncos, Allen was overwhelmed in the role and ended his run with an 8-28 record. He was fired after an 0-4 start to the 2014 season.
Now nearly a decade older and significantly wiser, Allen has had plenty of time to look back on his mistakes with the Raiders and mull over choices he would have made differently. He’s worked as Sean Payton’s right hand man for the last few years and has seen firsthand how a future Hall of Fame head coach has conducted himself. As Trask said herself, hopefully he learned a lot. But it’s still curious that news of Allen’s big promotion drew such a lukewarm reaction.
