Another crazy Monday in NFL
How many Monday Night Football doubleheaders in one season can an NFL fan stand? Answer: As many as they can schedule.
This week's begins with the Washington Football Team at Pittsburgh Steelers. That ought to end by the time the nightcap starts, which pits the Buffalo Bills “at” the San Francisco 49ers.
Why the quote marks around the `at'? Because the 49ers have relocated their entire operation to the Phoenix area for the first three weeks of this month, and perhaps longer.
The Niners will practise there and play their next two home games where one of their division rivals, the Cardinals, play: State Farm Stadium in Glendale.
The Niners had to up and move quickly — because last weekend the California county an hour's drive south of San Francisco where the team practises and plays, Santa Clara, has banned contact sports — both training and games — through Dec. 20.
Tonight's two games are emblematic of how the NFL, for the most part, is successfully battling COVID-19 without the logistically impossible feat of placing nearly 10,000 team personnel on 32 teams in one singular bubbled environment, as the NBA and NHL did to conclude their long-interrupted 2019-20 seasons with a fraction of people.
Sure, the occasional game is moved — either in date or location — but so far every game scheduled to be played through Week 12 of 17 has been.
The Steelers gained an extra day of preparation for Washington by virtue of the date switch from Sunday to Monday. Four days of prep instead of three matters.
Washington quarterback Alex Smith has injected needed stability and efficiency, if not volume or many big plays, into the team's attack — exactly what you'd expect from Smith, given his past play in San Francisco and Kansas City.
The Bills return to the scene of their blown win just three Sundays ago, in Glendale, where they fell to the Arizona Cardinals in the final seconds on Kyler Murray's desperation heave into the end zone to DeAndre Hopkins, from 43 yards out.
You can bet the Bills never expected to return there so soon.
San Francisco will be quarterbacked by Nick Mullens, as Jimmy Garoppolo continues to nurse a nasty high-ankle sprain.
If two games on Monday still aren't enough post- Sunday NFL football for ya, you're in luck this week.
The twice postponed Dallas at Baltimore game kicks off Tuesday. And Week 14 begins Thursday, with New England at the L.A. Rams.