If you want to blame the Cincinnati Bengals for anything, it’s not a lack of trying.
The Bengals saw an opportunity to hopefully make themselves the focal point of a new NFL tradition. The NFL will play on Black Friday for the first time this coming season. A scheduled matchup between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins is tabled up for the day. However, according to NFL schedule maker Mike North, Cincinnati made a fascinating suggestion.
Ari Meirov, “The Bengals volunteered to play on Black Friday every year and essentially make it a tradition just like Dallas and Detroit have on Thanksgiving.”
The trouble for the Bengals? The NFL did consider a matchup between them and the Pittsburgh Steelers. But they, however, “ultimately chose Jets/Dolphins. Amazon mentioned to the league that NY is the #1 retail market in America, so having the first Black Friday game in NY would be a cool concept,” Meirov wrote.
So while the Bengals have risen to prominence with back-to-back AFC Championships, Amazon still swatted down the idea in favor of Jets-Dolphins. It was a brutal reminder that New York still runs the TV verse, even in the uber-popular NFL.
The NFL world reacted to the brutal Bengals news. Plenty had a lot to say about the ruling Amazon made about the game and the proposal.
That would have been so much fun
https://t.co/2paVwPxERs —
(@BurrowForSix) May 12, 2023