Setting aside for a moment that you can only watch it on DirecTV, (and since I'm in NY for Thanksgiving and a business conference, I couldn't watch it), it's also throws off our normal fantasy football/office pool/survivor schedule. If you run a fantasy site, that means all the relevant columns need to be posted by Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and many pools require the picks to come in before kickoff on Thursday, meaning you don't even know who practiced on Friday, i.e., who's really going to be active on Sunday. It also screws up waiver wire deadlines, e.g., in our Staff League, the free agents are normally processed on Friday, and now you have to move it back a day in the middle of the season.

One of the great things about football is that it takes place largely on one day (plus Monday night), and you can deal with lineup decisions, injury information and last minute changes in one fell swoop. It's not like baseball where you're taking in new data and adjusting your perspective every single day. You can take a breath after the Monday night game, read about injuries on Tuesday, consider your waiver claims and check back in on Wednesday to see what's up with the practice reports. There's a nice rhythm to the football week, and the Thursday game disrupts it.

Don't get me wrong - it's great only to have to wait three days to watch another meaningful football game. But when you're running a fantasy site, it's a real pain. If they simply moved it to Friday night (after the last day of practice), that would be a major improvement, and you'd still get that extra prime time game.

And, of course, it's a national embarrassment that you can't watch it on cable.