Patrick Mahomes seemingly called out the NFL over its new Thursday Night Football plan, forcing the league to craft a response.
We already knew that Patrick Mahomes was the best football player in the world, but his powers grew tenfold on Tuesday night without him even needing to step onto the field.
All it took was a few flicks of his finger and the press of a ‘Send’ button for the NFL world to come to a grinding halt at the Owner’s Meetings in Arizona. The league announced that it had reached a new agreement regarding a change in its rules that would allow for teams to be scheduled for multiple Thursday Night Football games this year.
Previously teams were restricted to just a single appearance, but this new alteration would mean a team could find itself playing two games on Thursday night this upcoming season.
It doesn’t take a detective to see that this new rule change is happening a year into Amazon’s massive rights deal with the NFL to exclusively broadcast TNF. It also seems like a terrible idea given players have actively complained about how much more dangerous it makes a sport that is already one of the most violent professions on the planet.
Mahomes was one of the folks who connected these dots and took to Twitter to let it be known that he’s not a fan.
🤦🏽♂️ https://t.co/7kIyOGpOvV
— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) March 28, 2023
Needless to say, the NFL’s best player seemingly calling the league out for the policy change didn’t go unnoticed at the Park Avenue offices.
Roger Goodell responds to Patrick Mahomes tweet criticizing NFL
It didn’t take long before Goodell was asked about the response from Mahomes and he was quick to address it.
“I don’t think we’re putting Amazon over our players,” Goodell said. “The data doesn’t show a higher injury rate. I hear from players who also love the 10 days after a Thursday Night game. We have to try to balance all of it.”
Goodell seems to fill in the gap on the point Mahomes might have been trying to make with his emoji response, which sort of shows the NFL’s hand. By addressing the injury concern without it being mentioned, the league is basically saying it knows this might be a bad idea but won’t admit it.
But let’s table that for a moment to unpack and appreciate the best part of this, which is confirmation that Patrick Mahomes is the single most powerful football player in the NFL.
The commissioner of the league, the guy at the very top of the pyramid, needed to stop what he was doing and scramble to respond to a tweet that was sent by Mahomes.
A tweet. Think about that.
There were probably people scrambling for a solid hour trying to figure out the right thing to tell Goodell to say. Someone skipped dinner to gather data that would support this statement; calls were made, and plans were changed.
Because Patrick Mahomes sent a tweet mildly criticizing the NFL.
That’s objectively awesome. Nobody is safe from the power of Mahomes, not defenses, not leads with 13 seconds in playoff games, and not even the commissioner of the league.