Is Thursday Night Football a good idea?

The NFL will kick off week nine of the 2015 season tonight with an AFC North division grudge match between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns. In recent years, the NFL has slowly expanded the concept of Thursday Night Football to the viewing public. Back in 2011, the NFL Network featured eight regular season primetime games on Thursday night. This year, that number has increased to 14.

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Thursday Night Football has given the opportunity for sports fans to consume even more football during the week, but is this good for the game or does this dilute the NFL product? While fantasy football geeks rejoice at the idea of more primetime games to juggle their starting lineups with, purists of the game feel that the on field product becomes severely compromised.

The argument against TNF is that the overall quality of play becomes sloppy and the chance of injury increases because both teams are playing on a shorter work week. Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to create analytics to either confirm or deny whether or not injury risk increases during Thursday night games. Not only are there varying types and severities to each injury, but a player’s age and injury history can also play a role in obscuring any data.

Sep 13, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker Terrell Suggs (55) sits on the ground after an injury to his left lower leg in the fourth quarter against the Denver Broncos at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The Broncos won 19-13. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

However, I managed to dig up some numbers on teamrankings.com and NFL.com that revealed some interesting similarities between Thursday night football games and all other games played during the 2015 season. From all eight games played on Thursday night so far this year, the average margin of victory was 11.4 points per game. In week eight of the 2015 NFL regular season, there were 14 games played league wide that were decided by an average of 12 points per contest. So in terms of the overall competitiveness of Thursday night games, it seems to fall in line with any other weekend of NFL action.

Also worth noting is the fact that winning teams on Thursday night this year have committed an average of 6.4 penalties per game while losing teams have committed an average of 7.4 penalties per game. In addition, winning teams have committed just 0.6 turnover per game on Thursday night while losing teams have committed 1.8 turnovers during that span. In conclusion, the popular notion that Thursday night games are somehow more sloppy and mistake prone because teams have less time to prepare is simply a myth based on these findings.

Furthermore, special teams kicking numbers have been pretty spectacular thus far on Thursday night. Despite the rule change to make extra point attempts longer this season, no team has missed an extra point on TNF in 39 attempts through week eight. Also, winning teams have converted on 14 of 16 field goal attempts on Thursday night while losing teams without Josh Scobee on the roster have converted six of seven attempts. Scobee himself has been a dreadful 4-for-8 in two Thursday night losses this year.

Dec 22, 2013; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Josh Scobee (10) attempts an extra point during the game against the Tennessee Titans at EverBank Field. Mandatory Credit: Melina Vastola-USA TODAY Sports

So if neither team is committing many costly penalties or playing mistake prone football in other areas, what is usually the deciding factor of these Thursday night games? I believe the key statistics have to do with third down conversion rate and red zone efficiency.

Through week eight, NFL teams have converted a grand total of 1,207 third downs in 3,145 attempts for a conversion rate of 38%. Winning teams on Thursday night have converted 42 of 108 attempts for a conversion rate of 39%, one full percentage point above the league average. Losing teams on Thursday night have converted 29 of 100 attempts for a conversion rate of 29%, or nine percentage points below the league average.

As far as red zone efficiency is concerned, the league average is 54.9% through week eight according to teamrankings.com. While winning teams on Thursday night this year have converted 20 0f their 26 red zone opportunities for percentage of 77%, losing teams on Thursday night have only converted 10 of 22 red zone trips for a much lower percentage of 45%. So what could possibly explain such a discrepancy in third down and red zone efficiency during TNF?

In my opinion, the disparity has nothing to do with when these games are being played and everything to do with the offenses playing in these games. For example, the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Denver Broncos in week two thanks in large part to their woeful 0-of-7 third down conversion ratio (0%) and their 1-of-4 red zone efficiency rate (25%). In similar fashion, the San Francisco 49ers converted just 1-of-11 on third downs (9%) and were 1-of-2 in red zone efficiency (50%) in their loss against Seattle in week seven.

Nov 1, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) watches play on the sidelines during the second half against the St. Louis Rams at the Edward Jones Dome. The Rams won 27-6. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Simply put, if you are stuck with Alex Smith, Kirk Cousins, or Colin Kaepernick as your starting quarterback, it really doesn’t matter if the game is being played on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, or Doomsday. These caliber of passers can’t move the chains consistently enough to keep their teams in the game. For these types of subpar quarterbacks, a third and seven might as well be third and seventy. The fact that these quarterbacks are now being displayed in primetime events only further magnifies their shortcomings.

As a football purist, I once thought that Thursday Night Football was a bad idea that diluted the quality of the game. However, after crunching these number over a large sample size, I can’t find any statistics that could prove my theory correct. Perhaps the overall lack of quality starting quarterbacks is the issue, not which night the games are played on.

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