Get Ready for Wednesday Night Football

1. If Roger Goodell could figure out a way to have an NFL game played every day of the week, we’re sure he would make it happen. And we’d be fine with that.

But logistics won’t allow the NFL to be played seven days a week. However, when there’s an opportunity to jump on an open day in the calendar, the NFL has shown it will take it.

The past two seasons have featured a Friday night game during the first week of the regular season. This season will reportedly open with a Wednesday night game.

According to Puck’s John Ourand, the league is deciding whether it will open the season with the Rams-Niners game that will be played in Australia on Wednesday, Sept 9 or with the defending champion Seahawks playing on Wednesday and Rams-Niners on Thursday, Sept. 10.

Seattle’s home games next season are as follow: Cardinals, Niners, Rams, Cowboys, Giants, Chiefs, Chargers, Bears and Patriots.

My prediction is that the league will give us Giants at Seahawks in Week 1 to capitalize on John Harbaugh’s first game as New York's head coach.

The NFL will not have a Friday night game in Week 1, so we’re looking at a Week 1 that could see games on Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday.

2. The best part about the NBA fining the Jazz $500,000 for tanking is that the two games cited by the league for the infraction were a three-point road loss to the Magic and a win over the Heat.

Utah literally got fined half a million for tanking a game THAT IT WON!

The following has been released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/0JFQpOnOmF
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) February 13, 2026

3. There’s been so much talk lately about how the NBA regular season has become a joke, but more mic’d up clips of a coach mocking his own player’s outfit would certainly help things.

"How would you qualify that jacket?"
"A jacket."
"It's not a bomber..."

This mic'd up moment between Luka & JJ Redick 😂 pic.twitter.com/F1LfKlq1wa
— NBA (@NBA) February 13, 2026

4. Speaking of things I’d like to see more of, I was very into Nick Castellanos writing out a full story about the time he brought a beer into the Phillies dugout last year in pen and paper and then taking a picture of the piece of paper and posting it on Instagram. I enjoyed the creativity and read every word. (The story in question begins with the third slide of his Instagram post below.)

5. Those grades that the NFLPA releases every year evaluating organizations on things like the workout room, food, family friendliness and more are a thing of the past. The NFL won a case to have those grades no longer released publicly.

Sources: The NFL informed all 32 teams today in a memo that it prevailed in its grievance vs. the NFLPA and its “team report cards.” An arbitrator determined that the NFLPA’s conduct violated the CBA and ordered it to stop making public any future report cards. pic.twitter.com/mss5WUQjhF
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 13, 2026

This is a shame because this always led to some really great content. It’s also typical NFL, doing anything and everything it can to protect its image. But not everyone falls for the league’s nonsense.

NFL won’t let actual players grade the workplace they attend every single day, but they’ll allow a 3rd party “grading” service to display their “rankings” of players on national television every Sunday night… https://t.co/JBQXOgFZIN
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 13, 2026

6. This week’s episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina is an all-Traina Thoughts post-Super Bowl episode with Sal Licata from SNY and The Sal Licata Show.

Topics discussed include Seattle’s win over New England, Super Bowl betting, my horrific “bad beat” which ended up getting mentioned on SportsCenter and DraftKings parlays being a total disaster on Super Bowl Sunday.

Non-Super Bowl topics covered include good news for YouTubeTV subscribers, the rise of prediction market platforms and how Mark Wahlberg caused controversy for them last weekend, the Olympics, pricing at sporting events, an apology after a listener complaint, a funny story about my appearance on Richard Deitsch’s podcast, the Scrubs reboot and more.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast below or on Apple and Spotify.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: On this date 35 years ago, Seinfeld aired “The Phone Message” episode in which Jerry and George steal a tape from George’s girlfriend’s answering machine. This is notable for a couple of reasons. Some of you probably don’t even know what an answering machine is and Larry David has said in many interviews that he did this in real life.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.