The NFL's decision to postpone the Bills-Titans game to Oct. 13 means that football fans are going to be in for a rare treat this week and that treat is that the NFL will be holding a Tuesday game for just the second time in 70 years.
That's right, get ready for some "Tuesday Night Football."
The game between the Bills and the Titans, which was originally scheduled for Sunday, will now be kicking off from Nashville at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday. The NFL decided to move the game after multiple members of the Titans organization tested positive for coronavirus last week, which brought the total to 23 positive tests since Sept. 24. If you want to watch the game, you're in luck, because not only is it going to air nationally on CBS, but it's also available on CBS All Access (For details on how to stream the game on All Access, be sure to click here).
The only other time a Tuesday game has happened over the past 70 years came back in 2010 when the Eagles played the Vikings. Ten years ago, that game was postponed two days because a blizzard was about to hit Philadelphia. In that situation, the teams didn't find out until noon on Sunday -- less than one hour before kickoff -- that the game was going to be rescheduled.
One odd nugget from that game is that it led to one of the biggest regular season upsets of the past decade. Going into the game, the Vikings were a 14.5-point underdog, but they ended up pulling off a 24-14 win. That Vikings team is one of just six teams over the past 10 years that has won a game as an underdog of two or more touchdowns.
For this week, the Bills are a 3-point favorite over the Titans in a game where both teams are looking to stay undefeated.
One thing Tennessee and Buffalo will probably want to take note of from that 2010 game is how Minnesota and Philadelphia recovered following their Tuesday showdown. Playing on a Tuesday creates a competitive imbalance, because it means that the Titans and Bills will only have four full days of rest until their next game while their opponents will have a full week's rest (In the Bills case, they'll actually get five full days of rest since they won't be playing until Monday in Week 6).
In the case of the Vikings and Eagles, both teams lost their next game after playing on Tuesday. In Philly's case, they lost to the Cowboys 14-13 in a game that was a pick 'em. The Eagles only mustered 13 points in their loss to Dallas, which is notable because they had gone into the game as the third-highest scoring team in the NFL, averaging 28.4 points per game. As for the Vikings, they lost to the Lions 20-13 in a game where Detroit was favored by 3.5.
Following this year's Tuesday game, the Bills will be playing the Chiefs and the Titans will be playing Texans. The Chiefs-Bills game was actually supposed to played on Thursday in Week 6, but that got rescheduled for Monday so that the Bills didn't have to play two games in 48 hours.
If the Titans and Bills both lose in Week 6 after playing on a Tuesday in Week 5, then you'll probably see the NFL try to avoid Tuesday games going forward at all costs. The NFL actually used to play Tuesday games somewhat regularly. From 1940 to 1949, there were a total of seven Tuesday games in the NFL, according to Pro-Football-Reference.
To check out a preview for Tuesday's game, be sure to click here.
