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Patrick Mahomes perked up at the chance to play on Christmas Day again.
“Until I realized it was on Wednesday,” the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback said Monday.
Under the Christmas tree awaiting the players from the four teams in action Wednesday aren’t presents, but a pronounced set of bruises, aches and pains.
To play on a Wednesday, four teams took the field Saturday – the Chiefs, Houston Texans, Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers host the Chiefs at 1 p.m. ET, while the Ravens and Texans kick off in Houston (with a halftime performance from Beyoncé) at 4:30 p.m. ET.
A four-day turnaround has become a more common occurrence in the NFL. Teams that play on “Thursday Night Football” often must prepare in that time frame. But the league’s desire to play on Christmas Day, despite the holiday’s long standing association with the NBA, coupled with the introduction of a new media partner in Netflix, made Wednesday’s games a reality.
“I think it is really cool playing the first Netflix game, playing on Christmas Day in front of the whole nation,” said Mahomes, who noted the chance to make up for last year’s Dec. 25 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, their final defeat on the way to a second straight Super Bowl title.
His teammates don’t necessarily agree.
“When it came out, I thought it was horrible,” safety Justin Reid said, per the Kansas City Star. “And I still think it’s horrible. But it is what it is.”
Defensive tackle Chris Jones said he will be taking up the scheduling quirk with the NFL Players Association.
“I think that’s a conversation to be had this offseason,” Jones said.
The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 prevents the the NFL from scheduling games on Saturday until the second weekend of December. That opened Dec. 21 – going against two of the three College Football Playoff games that day – as a day to slot the four Christmas Day teams to provide the minimum rest required to trot teams out there less than 96 hours after they left the field.
“I think we have a good understanding of how to play short-week football,” NFL chief media and business officer Brian Rolapp said last month while speaking on a panel at Sports Business Journal’s Innovators Conference.
He added: “I don’t feel like we’re splitting the atom here. … I think we’re always thinking about where the best windows are to play from a media standpoint, the competitive nature of the game, and the health and safety of the games first. We started playing short-week games in 2006, and we started with six games, and we have gradually been getting smarter and better about it.”
For the Chiefs, it’s a stretch of six games in 31 days. This is their third short week in that span, since they played the Raiders on Black Friday. They’re the first team since the 1927 Yankees – not the famous “Murderers’ Row” Major League Baseball squad that featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gherig – to play on every day of the week except Tuesday in the same season.
Mahomes is dealing with a sprained ankle; head coach Andy Reid went from Arrowhead Stadium to the Chiefs’ training facility to log a few hours of prep Saturday. At this point in the season, every team is managing some sort of ailment.
“It’s part of what you’ve gotta do,” Reid told reporters Monday.
Following Saturday’s loss to the Ravens, Steelers defensive lineman Cam Heyward was asked if having this compact scheduling at this point in the season was unfair.
“Nope,” he replied. “It’s what you signed up for. It’s football. No matter who it is, you sign up for it every day. I know everybody in our locker room does. The schedule’s made. You just play. If we had won three (in a row), would we really be talking about it? We’ve had opportunities.”
The team talked about the schedule challenges ahead, Heyward said, and those who value their professionalism would find a way to recover Sunday while starting their preparation for the Chiefs or reviewing their performance against the Ravens.
“That’s how we roll,” Heyward said. “We don’t make excuses. We deal with what we got and move on.”
Baltimore and Houston, at least, had the benefit of a Week 14 bye, providing an opportunity to recharge and regain health late in the NFL calendar. The Chiefs (Week 6) and Steelers (Week 9) weren’t as lucky.
“Every team that plays on Wednesday has to deal with it, so we’re not complaining,” Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton said. It’s just a part of the business.
“It’s kind of nice getting them out of the way – just boom, boom, boom – three games done, and now we have Cleveland after this week and going to the playoffs, but like I said, we’re taking it … I was going to say one week at a time, but it’s really just one game at a time. We’re playing like four times a week, but I don’t think it’s on anybody’s mind. We’re just going out there to play the game.”
The Texans played the New York Jets on Halloween, a Thursday, earlier this season. Head coach DeMeco Ryans said the team will follow their schedule from that week. Recovering mentally, he said, will be essential, as the team watched wide receiver Tank Dell leave Saturday’s game via an ambulance after suffering a severe leg injury that included a dislocated kneecap and torn ACL while catching a touchdown against Kansas City.
The chance to play on Christmas is also “a unique opportunity for us … everybody watching, tuned in,” Ryans said.
That doesn’t mitigate the challenge of playing on short rest, even if it is Christmas.
“It’s hard,” Heyward said, “but who said football was easy?”