The Thursday night games have been crappy this year. Blowout City.
The league started doing these Thursday night games in 2006. Since then, there have been 63 of them. The games the last three weeks have been the biggest blowouts of all of them. And only 10 others were settled by 20-plus points, and the only other 2014 game – that Pittsburgh/Baltimore opener – is in that group.
BIGGEST THURSDAY BLOWOUTS | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year | Winner | Loser | Diff |
2014 | at Atlanta 56 | Tampa Bay 14 | 42 |
2014 | at Green Bay 42 | Minnesota 10 | 32 |
2014 | NY Giants 45 | at Washington 14 | 31 |
2012 | NY Giants 36 | at Carolina 7 | 29 |
2008 | at San Diego 34 | Oakland 7 | 27 |
2010 | at San Diego 34 | San Francisco 7 | 27 |
2011 | at Atlanta 41 | Jacksonville 14 | 27 |
2009 | San Diego 42 | at Tennessee 17 | 25 |
2010 | at Pittsburgh 27 | Carolina 3 | 24 |
2013 | San Francisco 35 | at St. Louis 11 | 24 |
2014 | at Baltimore 29 | Pittsburgh 6 | 23 |
2012 | Cincinnati 34 | at Philadelphia 13 | 21 |
2006 | at Pittsburgh 27 | Cleveland 7 | 20 |
It’s weird.
Also note that all of these teams are going to play again later in the year. Prior to those games clicking in, I will do a brief research project. I will check all other divisional games from the last 20 years or so. We’ll see how (with divisional games) the second game tends to go when the first one is a blowout.
—Ian Allan