Insider: NFL doesn't want to flex Thursday night games

Upset NFL fans and owners may want to relax and not overreact to the league approving the flexing of late-season Thursday night games beginning with the upcoming campaign.

"I would say this from what I know of this, I would still be surprised if any game was flexible," NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport said during a Tuesday appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" about contests being flexed in and out of Thursday broadcast windows, per the Barrett Sports Media website. "I would be surprised if any game was flexed because they don’t want to use it." 

Rapoport offered his update less than 24 hours after it was learned that Amazon and the NFL can flex up to two "Thursday Night Football" games from Weeks 13-17 on the schedule. Such alterations must be done with a minimum of 28 days advance notice. 

New York Giants co-owner John Mara and Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis are among the noteworthy outspoken critics of additional schedule flexing beyond just Sunday games. Mara acknowledged on Monday he was "disappointed, but certainly not surprised" that "Thursday Night Football" flexing received approval. 

Amazon is reportedly paying an average of $1.2B per year to serve as the exclusive home of national "Thursday Night Football" broadcasts and understandably wants higher-quality games than what fans had to tolerate last season. Rapoport presented a scenario for why the Week 14 matchup between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers on Dec. 7 could potentially be flexed out of the Thursday night window. 

"It’s not going to be like, 'Well, we have a little bit better game, so maybe we’ll do that,'" Rapoport explained. "It’s going to be like, 'Okay, we have (Pittsburgh backup quarterback) Mason Rudolph starting versus (New England QB2) Bailey Zappe. Like, no one will watch this. We have to move.' That’s to me, that’s under the circumstances that you’d see a flex."

Rapoport added that Thursday flexing is "only going to be used if they have literally no other choice." Such words spoken ahead of Memorial Day likely won't mean much to concerned fans who have tickets for midweek games from Weeks 13-17 and have understandable concerns about making travel arrangements related to those contests.