Getty Image / Sarah Stier
The NFL is an unstoppable ratings machine, and seemingly nothing can slow it down. No matter how much fans complain, they keep coming back.
But, on Thursday night, fans were complaining once again. This time it was about brutal back-to-back commercial breaks at the end of the 3rd quarter of the Jets-Patriots Thursday Night Football matchup from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford.
The Jets dominated the Patriots, 24-3, to move to 2-1 in the early part of the season. Aaron Rodgers continues to improve week after week in his comeback bid from a torn Achilles suffered just a few snaps into last year’s season-opener. And, the Patriots regressed pretty significantly after two competitive showings to start the year.
Much of the talk postgame wasn’t about the game itself. Instead, it was about a brutal set of commercials at the end of the third quarter.
New York Jets offensive tackle Morgan Moses was injured with just a few seconds left in the 3rd quarter. Instead of letting the final five seconds of the quarter run off the clock and then attend to the injured player, the game was immediately stopped, per the rules. It’s what happened after that had people up in arms.
Amazon Prime, which has the rights to Thursday Night Football, went to a full commercial break. Then, they came back from commercial break, watched five seconds tick off the clock, and went to another commercial break!
People were not happy.
“Injury Timeout. Commercial Break. 5 seconds run off the clock, end of quarter timeout. Commercial Break. J**** C***** there has to be a better way,” Brandon Perna said.
“Go to commercial for an injury, return to watch players stand on field as 5 seconds ticks off to end quarter, go to commercial. The NFL,” Tom Fornelli said.