No one wants to see the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots go head-to-head in a Thursday night game. It has snooze-fest written all over it.
However, the NFL and Amazon Prime Video felt that the two franchises offered enough appeal to draw a strong audience — the opportunity to flex the game passed two weeks ago, leaving football fans to deal with it or watch “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” instead.
2023 marks the first season that “Thursday Night Football” games can be flexed. At May’s NFL owners meeting, the option to flex TNF games was put to a vote, which passed 24-8, with the Steelers as one of the eight teams against it.
Unlike Monday Night Football, which requires 12 days’ notice, TNF is a whopping 28 days and can only occur between Weeks 13 to 17.
Schedule note: The Patriots-at-Steelers game is locked in for Thursday, Dec. 7 and will not be flexed.
As part of the new Thursday night flexible schedule rules, a decision was due no later than 28 days prior to the game. That deadline has passed.
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) November 13, 2023
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