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Report: NFL adjusting wild card playoff schedule to add Monday game

Postseason Monday night football is on its way.

The NFL is apparently getting ready to adjust its postseason schedule during wild-card weekend, and will include the final game of the weekend on Monday night, according to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

The schedule change will mean two games on Saturday and three on Sunday before the final wild-card game on Monday. It’s unclear which network will broadcast the Monday game.

The NFL debuted its new postseason format last year, expanding the field from 12 teams to 14 and adding a wild-card game in each conference. It kept the schedule the same, however, playing games on only the weekend.

The change isn’t official, and it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. If anything, it allows the NFL to open up postseason coverage to another TV network with an additional Monday night slot.

It would mean a shortened week for the winner of that game, as it would have less time to prepare for the divisional round. It’s hard to imagine, though, that the NFL would force the winning team on Monday night to turn around and play a Saturday game the following week. A Monday-to-Sunday turnaround is one that teams face all the time during the regular season, however, and shouldn't be that grueling.

If nothing else, the tweaked schedule means a longer football weekend for fans. That, especially during the playoffs, is a hard thing to get too upset about.