Don’t Count Out Flex Scheduling Coming to ‘Thursday Night Football’ and Amazon Prime

Also in Traina Thoughts: MLB player calls out wife; Aaron Rodgers goes shopping; Jason Kelce breaks down Jason Kelce film; and more.

1. At last week’s NFL owners meeting, there was a proposal to add flex scheduling to Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime for Weeks 14 through 17. Sunday Night Football on NBC has long had flex scheduling late in the season, and this coming season Monday Night Football on ESPN will get flex scheduling for the first time.

It would seem a bit trickier to add flex to TNF, but the NFL is a TV business more than anything, and Amazon Prime clearly needs all the help it can get when it comes to building an audience, so there’s no easier way to help draw more eyeballs to the streaming service than by giving it meaningful games late in the season.

However, the proposal ended up getting tabled until May after it got only 22 of the 24 yes votes needed. There were eight no votes and two abstentions.

Many experts predict the proposal will pass in May, despite coming up short on the votes this time.

NFL insider Andrew Brandt predicted on Twitter how all this would play out.

Another top NFL insider told me this week he also expects the TNF flex scheduling proposal to pass in May.

And on this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina, New York Post sports media reporter Andrew Marchand also said he expects Amazon Prime to get flex scheduling.

It will be interesting to see how hard the players push back if this happens in May. Some have already made it known that they don’t like the recent change that teams can now appear on Thursday Night Football twice in a season.

At the end of the day, how much or how little players push back won’t matter.

Last year the NFL signed new media rights deals with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and Amazon collectively for about $110 billion over the next 11 years. The NFL is going to take care of its broadcast partners no matter what.

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2. Jason Kelce’s wife recently gave us a hilarious breakdown of how he handled things when she recently gave birth to the couple’s second child.

On the NFL Network Wednesday night, the Eagles’ center gave us a breakdown of the breakdown.

3. Brewers outfielder Garrett Mitchell hit a walk-off home run against the Mets on Wednesday and then, in a pretty gutsy move, publicly called out his wife.

4. It's amazing that all these years later, the Isiah Thomas–Michael Jordan feud continues. Thomas recently made some comments about Jordan on the All the Smoke podcast, so then Jordan’s friend Charles Oakley mocked Thomas when he then appeared on the show.

This prompted Thomas to drop the hammer on Oakley on Twitter.

5. Aaron Rodgers seems to be doing all he can in the hopes of getting the Packers and Jets to finally agree on a trade.

6. A brand-new SI Media With Jimmy Traina dropped this morning, and it features a conversation with New York Post sports media reporter Andrew Marchand about the latest sports media news. Topics discussed during the podcast include:

• Pat McAfee’s broadcasting future on why he may opt out of his current deal with FanDuel
• Two factors that led to big ratings for the women's NCAA tournament on ABC/ESPN
• Fallout from the WWE being sold to Endeavor
• Whether Charles Barkley will add another job to his schedule and team up with Gayle King
• The NBA’s television and streaming future
• Flex scheduling for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime
• Derek Jeter joining Fox
• The disturbing discourse on Twitter

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch the SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: “Hot Ones” is always amusing, but things went to another level on the latest edition thanks to Succession’s Kieran Culkin.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.