Let’s double check NFL schedule and rosters
- Tom Rife: Livin' the Team
- December 3, 2020
- 691
By the time you read this, we can only hope the National Football League game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens finally has been played. If it hasn’t yet taken place, Roger Goodell, the NFL’s guileful commissioner, has some additional “splaining” to do.
Indubitably, the rescheduling of the game — originally slated to be played on Thanksgiving night — has ruffled more than a few fuzzy eyebrows within the league. The first shift in the schedule called for the event to be played on Sunday instead of that Thursday. Then with the COVID-19 outbreak still wreaking havoc on the Ravens, Goodell moved the AFC North showdown to Tuesday, when it again had to be re-slotted for Wednesday, with a most-curious kickoff time of 3:40 in the afternoon.
The Wednesday contest became just the second NFL game since 1948 to be staged on a Wednesday. All things considered, it all seemed kosher in that the Ravens’ 53-man roster, combining those put on COVID-19 reserve or injured, had been reduced to 38 eligible players as of last Monday.
As for the peculiar kickoff time, that could be ‘splained away too. The NBC television network apparently requested the late-afternoon slot so that it could honor its commitment to broadcast the 88th annual Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting festivities later that night.
The act goes to show everyone that TV does, indeed, have significant power to wield over Goodell. No doubt the game’s ratings on Thanksgiving night would have been blockbuster compared to a Wednesday afternoon when viewers normally would have been tuning in to Ellen DeGeneres.
One does wonder, though, just how Ellen and her loyal fans felt about the jilting. Having to play second fiddle to a chap like Big Ben Roethlisberger for even one day probably was not ever at the top of Ellen’s bucket list.
The constant rescheduling of the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game also resulted in a domino effect when it came to lining up the teams’ subsequent outings.
The other can of worms Goodell opened this past week was his denial to allow the Denver Broncos to reschedule their Sunday game against the New Orleans Saints. They had no quarterbacks eligible to play because all four of them active had been found in violation of the league’s mask-wearing and social distancing protocols.
Was it a double standard to force the QB-less Broncos to play (or forfeit the game) when Goodell had just shown the Ravens a completely different level of compassion?
Well, not in Goodell’s world. The commissioner instead clearly took a position that the COVID-19 guidelines are non-negotiable and that he expects Denver and every other franchise to abide by the protocols specified. Whether Goodell meant to make an example of the Broncos or not, that was the end result.
Rumors, by the way, were quick to fly that perhaps the Broncos might sign QB-in-waiting Colin Kaepernick as a last-minute replacement. But again, COVID-19 protocols played a role in making sure that didn’t happen. Kap would have had to undergo a negative coronavirus test, and there simply wasn’t enough time to let that process play out if indeed such a notion ever existed in the first place.
To Denver’s credit, the Broncos chose not to forfeit and instead ran out a practice-squad wide receiver to play quarterback against the Saints. Fill-in Kendall Hinton, undrafted out of Wake Forest, completed one of his nine passes for 13 yards and tossed a couple of interceptions. He also ran the ball twice for a total of 7 yards.
Though his QB rating was 0.0, it’s still a good bet that for years to come Hinton found his niche as the answer to those specializing in NFL trivia questions.
One final thought: Had I been running the show in Denver last Sunday, I would have been extremely tempted to put Ellen DeGeneres under center.