There is moe than one person involved with the scheduling process. Would would have leaked out if Goodell specifically sanctioned a vendetta. Add to this it takes a sophisticated computer program to smooth out all the nuances like shared stadiums. Too many travel dates. And so on.
Originally Posted by: wpr
Those people want to keep their jobs too... if they leak it, they better be prepared to be fired. Just like NFL Network let Jim Trotter go after grilling Roger Goodell on lack of progress on promises he made.
Goodell is a politician, he would know how to word it properly to not be a vendetta.
And normally I'd agree with you... BUT ... 95.8% of the teams that agreed with him, did NOT get this... the likehood of something 100% random to get to 95.8% is extremely extremely rare...
Less than 68%, that absolutely could be random.
68% to 81.5% is questionable
81.5% to 95% is very suspicious
BUt more than 95%? There extremely little chance that's completely random. It's as likely as a meteorite falling into your bedroom (which actual happened to some guy), and no the kitchen, living room or bedroom do not count, must be the bedroom.
Though to be fair, the NFL is not claiming it was random. They're claiming the teams got the Thanksgiving games because of their National Appeal. Of course, that only applies to the teams playing on Thanksgiving which are the Lions, Packers, Commanders and 49ers.... which I think it's fair to say say Lions and Commanders absolutely do not have National appeal, but Lions always play on Thanksgiving.
And in the limited quotes I've seen, they didn't they to explain why the double for the non-thanksgiving teams in the Steelers, Bears and Saints.
And here is the kicker! These teams were the ones that voted down the Goodell request trying to help out Amazon Prime with Thursday Nights... so they get more Thursday Nights (I assume with Amazon Prime, other than Thanksgiving), so it's the perfect irony.
All this being said, the double Thursdays Night games is more of an annoyance, than a vendetta... as you get a short rest, followed by a long one... the real disadvantages are the difference in time compared to your opponents, and
in these Twitter posts you can see the 49ers and Rams got screwed and the Bears lucked out.