The NFL should be ashamed for putting any team on the field after just four days

There’s no reason the Cleveland Browns, or anyone, should be playing a game after just four days.

So remember when I wrote that everything was coming up Millhouse for the Cleveland Browns? My bad. The Browns got a rough start for the season, taking on five potential playoff teams in a row, and getting their Bye Week in Week 5.  A shameful decision by the NFL. But made even worse is that the NFL will have the Browns go from playing on a Sunday on Christmas Eve, to four days later, playing a Thursday Night game.

Why we’re doing Thursday Night Games in Week 16 is beyond me, but that’s not the point. Why can’t the NFL figure out ways to keep this from happening?

How hard would it be to schedule a bye week, and then do a Thursday Night game? Seriously, I’ve never done an NFL schedule before, I don’t know how hard it is to do, but one would think the NFL could just schedule the Thursday Night Games for teams coming off of a bye, right?

The fact this keeps happening is maddening.

The Cleveland Browns and the 31 other teams need to start pushing back on this dangerous idea

The NFLPA seems to be fine with players risking their health even more so on a short turnaround, so I’m not sure what the players and clubs can do, but there’s no reason to be doing this to the players. Three days in between games aren’t enough. You want at least five if not six days for sure.

The NFL could just scrap the Thursday Night games and put games on Friday or Saturday instead. It’s not like the NCAA is really the holy cow it used to be. The players are getting paid there, so now they’re just as much of a competitor as anyone else. Who cares if you book an NFL game on Saturday?

Even if that’s not the answer, I still feel that if you actually prioritize booking the Thursday night games after the team’s bye weeks and building the schedule from that starting point, you’ll actually be able to prevent this from happening. It’s a shame the Browns and the other 31 teams still have to deal with this.