Frank Reich On Lack Of Primetime Games: 'We've Just Gotta Earn That'

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INDIANAPOLIS — There are generally two ways to land primetime games in the National Football League: build up a ton of offseason hype, or make it so that you're so good that the league can't help but include your team in games played on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights.


Frank Reich would prefer the latter approach as it pertains to his Indianapolis Colts squad. So when he revealed the Colts’ 2020 regular season schedule to his team on Thursday — a 16-game slate that includes just one primetime game, which is on the road — he tried to give that development its proper perspective.


"Just for the record: they didn't give us a home night game last year or the year before," Reich told his team in a virtual meeting. "You know, I understand the NFL has its reasons for doing what it does, but we want some respect, men. And so we've just gotta earn that."


The Colts' only primetime game in 2020 lands in Week 10, a Thursday Night Football matchup against the AFC South Division rival Tennessee Titans in Nashville. The Colts this season are one of seven NFL teams with one or fewer primetime games; the Washington Redskins and Detroit Lions have none, while the Colts, Houston Texans, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins each have one.


But perhaps the potential issue isn't the amount of primetime games the Colts have had in recent seasons — it's the location of them.


Starting in 2012, the first official season without Peyton Manning on the roster, and running through the scheduled 2020 games, the Colts have played (or will have played) 27 primetime regular season contests; 20 of those, or more than 74 percent, have been road games. The 2020 Week 10 game at the Titans is the sixth straight primetime game the Colts will have played on the road.


Of those primetime games since 2012, 10 have been on Sunday Night Football (with seven on the road), eight have been on Monday Night Football (with six on the road) and nine have/will have been on Thursday Night Football (with seven on the road). The Colts have a 9-10 (.474) record in those first 19 road primetime games.


So how does that compare to the rest of the league? Over that same timespan (2012 through games scheduled in 2020), the percentage of Colts primetime games played on the road is higher than any other team in the NFL by almost four percentage points: