The Sports Informant

For a year-and-a-half now I’ve been waiting to see my favorite player step on the field in the NFL. Last night, the wait was over, at least I thought.

As the former Notre Dame quarterback, former Cleveland Browns backup quarterback and recently announced Browns starting quarterback Brady Quinn stepped out of Derek Anderson’s shadow and finally into the spotlight, I flipped through the channels searching for the only NFL game being played on Thursday night, eagerly to sit down and see what I believe will be the birth of another great pro quarterback. But it wasn’t on ABC, it wasn’t on CBS, it wasn’t on Fox and while ESPN had talked about the game all day, it wasn’t on there either. It took me a few minutes to figure it out: It was on the NFL Network.

I took my official replica Quinn football jersey off and hung it back up in the closet. My night was ruined.

The NFL Network is an anomaly. Because major cable companies haven’t struck a deal with the network, it’s only shown on Satellite TV. Last time I checked, most of us don’t have that. While I consider myself a big football fan, it’s usually only the die-hards who go those lengths to get it. With a newborn baby and a wife on maternity leave for two months, it just wasn’t in the budget this year, although somehow even without the baby last year it wasn’t, either.

Anyway, after a week of hype from national media outlets, millions of us didn’t catch a glimpse of the game. And as long as people keep subscribing to the network, things like this will continue to happen to “Joe Six Pack.”

The same thing happened last season. The Green Bay Packers the Dallas Cowboys clashed in what was supposed to be one of the “games of the year.” Fans were outraged to find out they’d have to flood local bars to catch the game. While several did, those of us with better sense sat at home and sulked instead.

Thursday’s game was more of the same, and the beginning of a schedule of Thursday night games only being shown on NFL Network the rest of the season. This troubles me dearly.

Where are they going with this? Will this be the weekly norm next year? Will the NFL, who obviously gets to dictate which games are scheduled when, decide to put the biggest matchups of the season only on its network? Is this the end of us normal folks ever catching good games?

OK, it’s probably not that bad. Major deals with Fox, ABC and ESPN are filling the NFL piggy-bank and keeping fans coming to stadiums, so we’re at least safe on Sundays and Mondays. But thanks to money-hungry millionaires looking for more of Joe The Plumber’s hard-earned dollars, my Thursday nights are gonna have to be filled only with episodes of “The Office.”

Thanks NFL, the one time I could have watched my favorite player instead of two sad Bay Area teams was stolen from me. Thieves… you want my TV, too?