First time, long time for Jets and Giants on TV
New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley. Credit: Lee S. Weissman
The Giants and Jets will do something this weekend they never have done before: Play at the same time in late afternoon.
For a quarter century, from 1984 to 2009, they did not play a single game in the same scheduling time slot — other than against each other.
That policy loosened in the early 2010s, then became common in recent seasons, in part because both teams have struggled, and the league had better games to show New York-area viewers in late afternoon. But that overlap always occurred at 1 p.m.
The NFL told Newsday that as far as it can tell, the teams never have played opposite one another in the late afternoon window.
This Sunday, the Giants will visit the Cardinals in Arizona, making an early time slot on Fox impossible. So that game will be played at 4:05 p.m. Eastern Time.
The Jets will be at the Cowboys at 4:25 p.m. on CBS in a slot reserved for top attractions nationally, even though that matchup is not quite as attractive as it appeared to be before Aaron Rodgers' season-ending injury on Monday night.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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