It appears tv executives have a brand new attraction after the Commanders’ NFC Championship loss. Washington now ranks alongside Kansas Metropolis, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Dallas as marquee groups to observe.
It is essentially the most primetime video games ever for the Commanders, primarily as a result of Washington’s 1983-91 heyday of three Tremendous Bowl championships got here earlier than the beginning of Sunday and Thursday night time video games, plus streaming companies like Amazon Prime Video or Netflix. It was simply Monday Evening Soccer two or 3 times yearly.
Now, TV execs know huge scores await Commanders video games, particularly with Daniels coming off an NFL Rookie of the Yr Award. As an alternative of the normal Washington-Dallas scores blockbuster on Thanksgiving, the 2 groups will play the 1 p.m. sport on Christmas through Netflix.
The draw back for the Commanders on Christmas is that greater than 1 million space residents go away city for the vacations, so home-field benefit is marginalized. Certainly, Dallas proprietor Jerry Jones has lengthy mentioned the Washington space has extra Cowboys followers than any metropolis outdoors Texas. Northwest Stadium was lengthy overwhelmed with blue Dallas jerseys till final season. Now, Dallas might get one other fan edge.
The Commanders’ first worldwide sport since 2016 in London is Nov. 16 versus Miami, because the NFL ventures into Spain for the primary time within the common season. Spain, together with London and Germany, is taken into account one of many high European venues ought to the NFL develop. The NFL needed a marquee quarterback to dangle earlier than an abroad viewers.
Total, Washington has a troublesome run this fall, particularly with no 1 p.m. begins in October and November. 5 late highway video games will see Washington attain house within the early morning hours of Monday, rendering that day ineffective.
Historically, no person sleeps on planes after video games. Washington kicker Brett Conway slept after a 1997 Christmas Eve sport in San Francisco, solely to later uncover teammates used a Sharpie to make him seem like a cat. Conway didn’t discover till arriving at his girlfriend’s household house for Christmas brunch. Let’s simply say Conway retaliated with a number of critical pranks to punish his creative teammates.
Washington has three units of consecutive highway video games and two Thursday contests for brief weeks. It additionally finishes with 4 straight NFC East video games, together with two of the ultimate three versus the defending Tremendous Bowl champion Eagles.
It appears Washington’s value of success isn’t any lazy early afternoon video games. As an alternative, the Commanders are prime points of interest.
