What could be more entertaining than second-guessing NFL coaches? Absolutely nothing. So let’s dive into it every week right here. Today’s focus: Schedule shuffling!
This season, the NFL made use of a new feature called “Thursday Night Flex” for the first time. This involves moving a game from Sunday to the preceding Thursday. Just recently, Denver made the trip to Los Angeles to face off against the Chargers due to this flex scheduling. The NFL decided to swap out the Cincinnati-Cleveland game from the Thursday spot — the reasons behind this decision are quite obvious — and offered Denver the chance to step in.
It’s important to note that Denver had a choice in this matter. Given that the Broncos had already played a Thursday night game on the road earlier in the season — in Week 7 against the Saints — they had to agree to another road game on short rest. The question arises: Why would a team willingly opt for a second game on a short week?
Unfortunately for Denver, the outcome of this strategic decision didn’t go as planned. Despite holding an 11-point lead in the third quarter, the Broncos ended up losing to the Chargers. Head coach Sean Payton cited the tight scheduling as a contributing factor to the loss.
“We dropped coverage tonight five different times,” Payton remarked post-game. “Look, on a short week, we’ve got to look closely at, ‘Why are these things happening?’ But five different times, we had free runners. And you can’t have one of their top receivers not covered.”
It’s worth noting that the Broncos willingly accepted the challenge of a short week, so being in that position was a choice rather than a circumstance forced upon them. Short weeks can be extremely challenging for teams in terms of preparation — the upcoming Wednesday Christmas games are expected to be particularly rough — so when a coach willingly sacrifices that preparation time, it raises questions about the underlying motives.
So why did Denver agree to take on the Thursday night game? One plausible reason could be that it provided them with more than a week’s break before a crucial Week 17 matchup against the same Bengals team that got flexed out of the Thursday spot.
Despite having a 76 percent chance of making the playoffs according to NFL Next Gen Stats, which is significantly lower than the Chargers’ 94 percent, Denver may have inadvertently put themselves in a tight spot for Week 16 by possibly aiming for extra prep time ahead of Week 17. The decision-making process behind such scheduling choices remains a subject open for debate.
In conclusion, the intricacies of NFL scheduling and the strategic decisions made by coaches often come under scrutiny, especially when unexpected outcomes manifest. The balance between short-term benefits and long-term planning is a delicate one, and the repercussions of such decisions can have a significant impact on a team’s performance. As the season progresses, it will be intriguing to see how these scheduling dynamics continue to shape the narrative of the NFL landscape.
