NFL Coronavirus Problems Benefiting ESPN Monday Night Football

Not surprisingly, the NFL’s insistence on trying to play all its games at its home markets and not in a bubble despite the coronavirus pandemic again picking up steam, is causing plenty of issues.

It marks the second straight week that the Tennessee Titans’ game has been rescheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic, with Sunday’s scheduled game against the Buffalo Bills taking place Tuesday on CBS
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after last week’s game against Pittsburgh
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was postponed to later this month. New England’s loss to Kansas City last week had to be played Monday regionally on CBS, while the network will carry Titans-Bills nationally.

With multiple Patriots like superstar cornerback Stephon Gilmore still testing positive for COVID-19 this week and quarterback Cam Newton still likely out with this virus as well, their game in Denver was postponed from Sunday until Monday, with ESPN now carrying a doubleheader in addition to its regularly scheduled game between the Los Angeles Chargers and New Orleans Saints.

Considering the NFL’s large roster sizes, the unhygienic nature of the sport and the anticipated rising number of cases nationally as the weather grows colder in many parts of the country as we hit cold and flu season, it’s only logical that more regular season games are going to be pushed to Mondays the rest of the season. And in a twisted way, that would be great news for ESPN. The Worldwide Leader would get to carry more games as the network looks to not only keep Monday Night Football after the current leaguewide TV deal ends after the 2021 season but will likely look to expand its piece of the pie.

Not only have the new top MNF announcing crew of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick settled into their new roles well enough, but ESPN’s top college football broadcasting pair of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit have gotten to call more games as well, including New England-Denver this Monday. Herbstreit told The Big Lead this week that he’s now more open to leaving college to call the NFL permanently now that he’s gotten that opportunity this season, and that could be important for ESPN in the future when they can have a bigger name calling MNF games to bring to the league during future contract negotiations.

We’d all like NFL games to be played at their regular scheduled times, but that was never really a realistic goal considering the nature of the pandemic and the league’s insufficient safeguards. But if there is a silver lining in all of this, it’s that ESPN will probably get more MNF games than it’s ever gotten before.