NFL plumbing the depths with this offering
Forget throwback NFL jerseys. Get ready for a throwback edition of “Thursday Night Football.”
The 1-6 Raiders face the 1-7 49ers in this week’s Fox and NFL Network prime-time showcase.
NFL ratings have been up this season — thanks largely to competitive games — but this is exactly the sort of dreary showdown that tests how devoted fans are.
The current line is: Don’t you have something better to watch?
Even those who can’t stand Joe Buck have to feel at least a little sorry for the guy having to call this game.
Thursday games rarely have been a favorite for the players, especially those whose teams are coming in on short rest, as the 49ers and Raiders are.
Niners cornerback Richard Sherman referred to them as a “poopfest” in The Players’ Tribune a couple of years ago when he was with the Seahawks, com-
paring drawing a Thursday night game with “a middle finger” from the NFL.
But this week’s Battle of the Bay is a throwback to when the league thought nothing of using Thursday nights as a dumping ground, often giving lesser teams national exposure — whether the nation wanted to be exposed to them or not.
You know, the way it seemed to be before this season.
That arrogant indifference to the audience was supposed to go away when Fox gifted the NFL earlier this year with a deal said to be worth $3.3 billion to air simulcasts of 11 NFL Network games per season through 2022.
In paying one-third more than CBS and NBC paid for Thursday games last season, Fox reportedly was given assurances it would get an improved slate of games.
Unfortunately, while NBC gets to change late-season “Sunday Night Football” matchups to offer more compelling games, Fox on Thursdays — like ESPN, with its “Monday Night Football” package — is stuck with whatever the league doled out in the spring.
What might once have seemed a so-so game can get a lot worse by midseason. This one is downright awful. The 49ers of coach Kyle Shanahan were bad enough when C.J. Beathard had to replace injured quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, and have yet to win since.
Now there’s a chance Beathard, who missed practice Tuesday with an injured right wrist and thumb that makes it hard for him to grip a ball, might have to sit against the Raiders.
That would mean the first regular-season NFL snaps for Nick Mullens, who, after going undrafted last year out of Southern Miss, spent all of last season and through Week 3 this year on the 49ers practice squad.
In short, Mullins seems unlikely to evoke memories of Joe Montana, Steve Young or even Colin Kaepernick, although anything is possible.
As for the Raiders, well, any organization that gives a 10-year, $100 million contract to lure Jon Gruden back to coaching yet offloads defensive superstar Khalil Mack to the Bears for draft picks and magic beans deserves whatever fate befalls it.
This week’s “poopfest” stands in stark contrast to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” Patriots-Packers matchup, which pits future Hall of Famers Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers against each other for only the second time. That one has football fans talking. This one has football fans groaning. Things always could be worse, of course. In fact, they might well be on the Nov. 12 edition of “Monday Night Football,” which features the 49ers and the Giants.
It’s another matchup of teams that currently have just one victory apiece, with the addition of oft-criticized rookie analyst Jason Witten and the rest of the ESPN crew. That’s a throwback game too. Throw it back.