West coast teams playing on the east coast

[TrueBeliever]

After the Chargers got beat up by the Doll-Fiends a few weeks back, some pundits were arguing that the NFL should make a rule that whenever a team from the west coast plays at an east coast stadium, the game should always be either a late afternoon start or a night game due to the difference in time zones. The argument being that these guys are playing a game at the time their body clocks are used to getting up and having breakfast. (Granted that might be a stretch because I imagine these guys get up pretty early on game days anyway.)

On the one hand, you could argue that's just part of the game, and no such concessions are made for similar situations in the other sports.

On the other, you could also argue that it's an unfair advantage, plus it's rude to those team's fans who have to get up early on a Sunday just to watch their team.

Discuss.

 

[TrueBeliever]

I would like to add something - this morning on the CBS pregame show it was mentioned that apparently Shannon "Horse face" Sharpe was one of the ones calling for this, which brings the notion down a notch in my book.

Further, he was talking about this effect on the Pats-Rams game. Hey dumb chit, St. Louis is in the CENTRAL time zone - there's only an hour difference.

 

[alamo]

Further, he was talking about this effect on the Pats-Rams game. Hey dumb chit, St. Louis is in the CENTRAL time zone - there's only an hour difference.

Hey, STL is in the NFC West, so a trip to the AFC East must be cross-country, right?

Inadvertently that brings up one of the problems with a harebrained scheme like this: what about the Central and Mountain time zones?

Personally I think the Pats would have a better record in Denver if their games there started two hours *early*, at 11AM local time, rather than being late games.

 

[jmt57]

I mentioned this trend in a thread a couple weeks ago, the difficulties both west coast teams are having on the east as well as the reverse, and was pretty much dismissed by those that bothered to reply. My first reaction is to agree and have the games played late, but it seems to me you may be opening up a can of worms with more rules. If it is a season in which both AFC and NFC West teams play the AFC East, an AFC East team could host as many as four teams from the west coast. With that rule enacted, half of their home games could be forced to be moved to 4 pm. Do you really want to move all those games? But if you change a game for the Seahawks, but not Arizona, are the Cardinals going to cry foul?

Another consideration is the networks, because their money talks. If there is a typically high rating game such as the Colts-Pats or Cowboys-Redskins on late, how will they react to four markets not getting that national game because there are two west coast team at east coast team games scheduled that day?

I think there are other situations with the schedule that are worse than the west-at-east early game. The following, in my opinion, should all be eliminated: three straight road games; a road game following a Monday or Sunday night game due to loss of preparation and recuperation time; and consecutive night (Sunday or Monday) night games, also due to loss of preperation and recuperation time. I would consider back-to-back coast-to-coast road games also, but I'm not sure which is worse: staying on the other coast and living out of a hotel for a week, or the additional 12,000 miles of travel.