Saints played key part in new Thursday Night Football flexing

The NFL's ruling on flexing Thursday Night games has been newsworthy for fans. New Orleans Saints fans may be interested to know the Saints had a hand in it.

The NFL's decision to approve late-season flexing of Thursday Night games from weeks 13-17 has certainly lead to... "discussions" among fans and media alike, and fans of the New Orleans Saints are no different. How could they be? It's something of a lightning rod issue. However, it's pretty interesting that the Saints had a slightly bigger part in this whole thing than initially thought.

24 votes is the bare minimum needed for something like this to pass, which is part of the problem for some, but that's where the Saints came in.

For those in support of this, things were looking bleak until the Saints and Washington Commanders changed their stances from “no” to “yes”. This, coupled with division rival Carolina Panthers and Sean Payton's Denver Broncos flipping from “abstain” to “yes,” the 24 (again, bare minimum) votes were obtained by the league office for late-season Thursday Night flexing.

We don't really know why the Saints and others flipped the switch, but in the grand scheme of things, it may not really matter either. Nobody knows why the league and the owners do what they do, but we're still going to come back and watch season after season, year after year.

There are obviously a litany of other things to talk about with this announcement, with the involvement of the Saints being the tip of the iceberg. However, it still will affect their franchise, their fans, and the same is true for the other 31 NFL franchises. Regardless of your opinion on the matter, this is life now, and the New Orleans Saints come out looking heroic, or villanous. Either way, it's only May and we can't wait for the season to start.