Here at the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState, we hold hard and fast to certain principles. College football rivalry games should always be the last game of the regular season. We should forever banish all parties involved with maintaining stage racing and the chase format in NASCAR. Any sports franchise wishing to move to another city should be required to pay the expansion fee for a replacement team and 100% of the cost for a new stadium or arena in the city they’re leaving. And finally, the NFL should never play on any Thursday other than Thanksgiving ever, ever again.

Football is meant to be played on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is fall’s last hurrah; although a few weeks are remaining before winter’s official start, by the time the fourth Thursday in November runs its course it is hunker-down-and-break-out-the-thermals time if this has not yet already happened. The frozen tundra of Lambeau Field is now starting to, well, freeze. The Bills Mafia is breaking out triple layers of clothing with the same enthusiasm that it breaks tables in the Highmark Stadium parking lot. And every team that is both east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line wishes the Chargers still played in San Diego.

It is correct, then, that celebration of the autumn wind‘s preferred sport takes place on Thanksgiving. Winter is coming, not with dragons and swords but with double-edged price increases and fiery blasts of bald-faced lies from the government and its media enablers. In the face of such, we need all the celebrating we can cram into the allotted time of this unique, sacred day. And football, its failed attempts at wokeness and all, is woven into America’s celebration of itself and its accomplishments.

Where football doesn’t belong is every Thursday. While the Sunday night game can be rearranged to pick the most exciting matchup of the week, and Monday night football, although no longer the cultural icon it was in the 1970s and 1980s, usually features a game of interest, by the time the NFL gets around to scheduling its Thursday night matchups the main priority seems to be finding two teams fans nationwide are least likely to be annoyed about not being able to see on a regular broadcast network. This year we’ve seen such scintillating jousts as the Washington Team With No Name against the New York Giants and the Jets versus the Falcons. Riveting.

Let’s have a professional football game played on Thursday be something special again. Banish all Thursday night games except Thanksgiving. No one will miss them. At all.