![\"Cameron](\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/GettyImages-1344783652.jpg?quality=65&strip=all&w=780\")
<\/p>\nNFL players have grown accustomed to games on pretty much every day of the week. But veterans still get annoyed with too many consecutive non-Sunday games.<\/p>\n
That is certainly the case for Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Cameron Heyward. On the January 2 episode of his podcast, \u201cNot Just Football,\u201d the 34-year-old ripped into the NFL for scheduling three Saturday games and a Thursday contest for the Steelers in the final five weeks of the 2023 regular season.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I want to bring up, though, that\u2019s kind of ticked me off in December, we\u2019ve played three Saturday games, and we\u2019re going to have played three Saturday games and a Thursday game,\u201d Heyward shared on January 2. \u201cWe talk so much about player safety and player health, right? We\u2019ve literally decreased our chance to recover game to game for an entire month. That just is kind of shocking when you think about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make strides in protecting the body, we\u2019re trying to make strides in keeping quarterbacks upright, but like damn, like you\u2019re taking away a recovery day that we\u2019ve had almost every week throughout September, October, November, and then we get to December because we\u2019re trying to sell tickets and we\u2019re trying to push the streaming to another level.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know you\u2019re screwing us in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
For two of the three Saturday games Heyward referred to, the NFL flexed the Steelers into a primetime slot on that day.<\/p>\n
NFL Flexible Scheduling for Week 18<\/strong> That means primetime games on atypical days for many teams, such as the Steelers.<\/p>\n Despite the possibility of not being a playoff team, the Steelers will finish the 2023 season with seven marquee matchups \u2014 where the team played a game while the rest of the league didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Four of those matchups have come since December 7. The Steelers faced the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals at 4:30 pm ET on Saturday. That will again be the kickoff time for the Steelers\u2019 Week 18 matchup versus the Baltimore Ravens.<\/p>\n In the case of Week 18, the NFL has the added complication of scheduling Saturday games that won\u2019t make other contests on Sunday meaningless.<\/p>\n That made the Steelers-Ravens showdown a perfect choice for Saturday. Regardless of the outcome, the other AFC Wild Card contenders will have something to play for on January 7.<\/p>\n And if the Steelers should win, there will be extra intrigue for Sunday\u2019s contests. That\u2019s exactly what the NFL wants.<\/p>\n The Benefit of Having Multiple Saturday NFL Games<\/strong> Yes, the Steelers will face the Ravens on a short week for the season finale. But the Steelers played on Thursday before their first Saturday contest and then they played again the following Saturday.<\/p>\n So, other than Week 18, the only short week the Steelers have faced during their unusual December schedule was in Week 14 when they faced the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football after having played Sunday.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true, playing on Saturday disrupts a players routine of having a game every Sunday. But the Steelers haven\u2019t really lost many recovery days as a result.<\/p>\n Maybe the Steelers will be at an advantage in Week 18 against the Ravens, who haven\u2019t played on a Saturday during the 2023 regular season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NFL players have grown accustomed to games on pretty much every day of the week. But veterans still get annoyed with too many consecutive non-Sunday games. That… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflnhungn.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHeyward is absolutely correct that the NFL typically doesn\u2019t have player safety in mind with its scheduling. The league does its best to get the most popular teams, best matchups and intriguing storylines in front of as many eyes as possible.<\/p>\n
\nAlthough it\u2019s difficult to disagree with Heyward\u2019s overall point, there was one hole in his argument. Multiple Saturday games in a row is actually a positive, not a detriment, to a player\u2019s recovery process between games.<\/p>\n