The NFL didn’t need to play on Christmas Day. But why cede territory to the NBA when there are ratings to be pillaged?
The league knows there are eyeballs to be drawn and dollars to be made even if someone named Max Brosmer is throwing for 54 yards to “help” the Minnesota Vikings to an atrocious victory over the flagging Detroit Lions. The league knows that feuding families can put down their egg nog and quietly take in the Patrick Mahomes-less Kansas City Chiefs as they flail against dragging Denver.
What we know this holiday season: More football isn’t better football. The product is all but ubiquitous. But the product also has suffered.
That was evident on Christmas Day, the second year in a row the NFL has shoehorned in a multi-game slate on a holiday it once was happy to sit out. We already live with weekly games on Thursday that rarely play out as aesthetically pleasing. Three of them on the holiday just means more mediocrity.
The league wants to go to an 18th game because that provides television networks – not to mention newcomers with cash, Netflix and Amazon – with more meaningful content. It says here that content would be borderline unwatchable.
It doesn’t take much time in an NFL locker room to figure out that the most important elements to an individual football player’s success aren’t necessarily practice and preparation. They’re rest and recovery.
Tackles are no longer a shoulder thudding into a midsection with arms wrapped around the ballcarrier. They’re high-speed car crashes, and their effects linger into the following week. If players have just three days off between games rather than six, they can’t possibly be as sharp. That’s in developing and executing a game plan, sure. But it’s also in being physically well enough to play at full speed.
Plus, throw this holiday programming into the 17th week of an 18-week schedule, and availability is going to be an issue. Half of the teams that played on Christmas Day this year were down to their third-string quarterbacks. When the NFL schedule was revealed back in May, viewers figured to see Dak Prescott face Jayden Daniels, Jared Goff take on J.J. McCarthy and Mahomes deal with Bo Nix.
Instead, we were subjected to Josh Johnson in Washington, Brosmer in Minnesota and someone named Chris Oladokun for Kansas City. Injuries not only can determine the fate of a franchise in a given season. (Hello, Commanders.) They can determine the quality of football we’re left to consume.
The NFL won’t relent, of course. Economics say it shouldn’t. Amazon Prime, YouTube and Netflix vastly outspend traditional sources such as Disney/ESPN and NBC for sports programming rights now – more than three quarters of the $6.5 billion doled out in 2025, according to Ampere Analysis. If the cash keeps coming, leagues will only contort themselves to make sure they’re in position to receive it.
If that means playing games on Christmas even when Christmas falls on a Wednesday – as it did last year – then so be it. The product needs only to exist, particularly when as many or more people are interested in that product for fantasy purposes or prop bets. The game doesn’t have to be played at its highest level to yield over/unders or anytime touchdown bets. It just needs to be played, period.
What the NFL has mastered, though, is an ability to engender hope – virtually in any franchise for any season. The “F” ought to stand for “Fluid” or “Fragile.” Last season, the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars went 4-13, the Chicago Bears 5-12. Each fired its coach. This season, they’re all in the playoffs – and threats to go deep once they arrive.
Quick, name the two franchises that have qualified for the postseason in each of the five seasons from 2021-25. (Pssssst. The sub-.500 Chiefs aren’t among them anymore.) There’s another that, if it takes care of business over the next two Sundays, could join them. Think about it for a minute.
Or here’s another way to frame the same idea: Over those five seasons, name the five franchises that have failed to qualify for the playoffs even once. Yes, New York Jets fans, we know this is easy for you. But some of the answers can be surprising.
The point: The NFL may not have mastered consistent, late-season quality. It has figured out competitiveness. Tweak the schedule by having last-place teams from the previous season play other last-place teams. Give everyone the same amount of money to spend on payroll so all 32 teams are on even financial footing. All of a sudden, market size doesn’t much matter. Indeed, 20 of the 32 NFL teams have at least two playoff appearances from 2021-25.
Which gets us to the answer of the first question above: The two franchises on a five-year run in the playoffs are Buffalo and Philadelphia, the defending Super Bowl champion. Tampa Bay, with wins in its final two games against Miami and Carolina, could well join them.
The other question: Who hasn’t made the playoffs recently? That would be Carolina, Indianapolis, Atlanta and New Orleans joining the Jets. But the Panthers and Colts are still alive (if barely) this season. The Falcons, now 6-9, haven’t won fewer than seven games in any full season over that five-year stretch. The Saints and Colts have posted two winning seasons apiece. As difficult as it is to remain consistently dominant, it’s equally hard to be consistently irrelevant. (Sorry, Jets.)
So turn on the NFL as we barrel toward 2026. The league knows you will. Much of the football matters. Just don’t expect the standard to match the sport at its highest level. There’s too much of it being played on odd days that make for short weeks and compromised performers. But the quality shows there’s a larger issue:
There’s too much football being played, period.
