(WFAN) The Vikings and Saints will meet on Christmas Day in a game that could be incredibly important for both teams – but no matter what the playoff implications may be, they're guaranteed to make history.
Dec. 25 falls on a Friday this year, so the minute they kick off, the two teams will assure that, for the first time ever, the NFL played at least one game on every single day of the week during a season.
Sundays have always been about the NFL, and over the years, the league has added Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football (first on Thanksgiving only and then weekly), and more recently a handful of Saturday games late in the season once the collegiate regular season is over.
This year though, COVID-19 postponements have pushed two games to Tuesday – the Titans-Bills game in Week 5 and the Ravens-Cowboys tilt this week – and gave us a Wednesday afternoon Ravens-Steelers contest, so the Christmas Friday will give us the full monty.
NFL games on Tuesday or Wednesday are, as you might imagine, incredibly rare. Prior to 2020, each day had only hosted one game in the modern era (since 1950), both of which came in the last decade. A Vikings-Eagles game in 2010 was moved from Sunday to Tuesday because of a forecasted blizzard in the Philadelphia area, and the season opener between the Giants and Cowboys in 2012 was moved from Thursday to Wednesday so it didn't interfere with then-President Barack Obama’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Friday games are a little less rare – there have been 10 since the AFL-NFL merger alone in 1970, the last in 2009 – but never before had even five days been utilized on the weekly calendar during an NFL season, let alone all seven.
2020, man ... gives new meaning to “Any Given Sunday,” doesn’t it?
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN.
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