A Look Ahead to Year Four of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime

As I mentioned before in my piece about this year's Sunday Night Football matchups, I am writing about the 2025 schedule in bits and pieces. The SNF piece was first, and for this installment, it's Thursday Night Football that is the focus. I've watched football since I was seven, and back then, I had been used to NFL games airing on Sundays, Mondays, and some Saturdays. The only Thursday football back then was, of course, Thanksgiving, and it was always two games: a Lions game and a Cowboys game.

As time went by, some select Thursdays had football, usually one at around Week 7 or 8, and there would be a Thursday game a week after Thanksgiving. It wasn't until 2006 that the Thursday games would become more of a thing, usually airing late in the season as part of the playoff push, and 2012 started the arrangement we are now familiar with: Thursday Night Football every week beginning with Week 2, and usually ending at the penultimate week of the season. Now, you'll notice I said "Week 2." You'll point out that the season starts with a Thursday game. You're right. However, that game airs on NBC under their "Sunday Night Football" banner. And the Thanksgiving games don't count under this group, either.

The "Thursday Night Football" banner started on NFL Network in 2006, and evolved in 2012 with the current arrangement. It was in 2014 that the NFL Network started working with CBS to air Thursday Night Football, and yes, that included Aaron Rodgers' famous Hail Mary--which will turn 10 this year. After two years of working with just CBS, the NFL Network decided to also work with NBC on select TNF games as well, lasting an additional two seasons before Fox got involved, as well as Twitter and Amazon Prime.

After four seasons working with Fox, the Thursday Night Football banner moved exclusively to Amazon Prime Video, with a 12-season deal that began in the 2022 NFL season. Amazon's first game was a preseason game, but their first official NFL telecast was Week 2 that year, the first of the two annual meetings between the Chargers and Chiefs. Prime does allow local simulcasts, and in the case of this game, I was able to watch on my local Fox channel here in SoCal. It seems like yesterday that the TNF on Prime era began, but this upcoming season is the fourth year of this phenomenon.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room. Thursday Night Fooball has been under a lot of scrutiny in the last few years. A lot of fans of teams who have to play on a select Thursday complain about the lack of down time between the previous game and the Thursday game, adding that it puts players' health at risk. A lot more say that the Thursday games are boring and usually feature bad teams. Now, the NFL did kinda hear that part of the complaint, so last year, the NFL decided that Thursday games can be flexed... to a lot of extent. TNF games can be flexed twice, but it's only the games played between Weeks 14-16. That's not a lot of choices, but it's something. At least it's the late season games, close to playoff time. I do expect that flex plan to evolve eventually.

With that, let's look at this year's TNF games:

I'm very honored by this. Yes, I love Thursday Night Football. Why wouldn't I? It begins a new week of the season. As someone who will be doing Fantasy Football for the eighth straight year, I love TNF because it's an opportunity to get some early points. And it's a national TV spot. So who will kick off Season Four of TNF on Prime? None other than the Washington Commanders and the Green Bay Packers. Jayden Daniels and Jordan Love on national TV on September 11, 2025, and for the Packers, it's our second straight home game to start the season (we open our season at home against the Lions on September 7). Here's hoping we get off the schnide on Prime--the Packers are 0-3 on Amazon Prime.

Prime's original schedule in 2022 consisted of 15 games, but in 2023, it was announced that an NFL game would air on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), and Prime would have that game as well. So this is Year Three of that as well, and this year, it's Bears @ Eagles on Black Friday. As for the games in that Flex window, there's Cowboys/Lions (Week 14), Falcons/Bucs (Week 15), and Rams/Seahawks (Week 16). I only see that NFC South game being moved; the other two games look too delicious, plus I sense the Falcons' season being pretty much done (or close to it) by Week 15.

This year's Prime games collection includes 16 regular season games under the TNF window: 15 games on Thursday (including a Christmas game) and the annual Black Friday game. And for the second straight year, Prime will air one of the Wild Card Playoff games. Last year, Prime had an AFC game between the Steelers and Ravens. I wouldn't be shocked if they snagged an NFC game this year.

I do love Prime's Thursday Night Football coverage, I really do. I think they've done quite an amazing job since they fully took over in 2022, and here it is, the fourth year of this arrangement, and there's eight more years of this after this season closes. TNF on Prime is a great way to kick off a week of football, especially if you have certain players in those games on your fantasy teams.