The Week 2 Thursday Night Football matchup between the Vikings and Eagles kicked off Amazon Prime Video's NFL coverage for the 2023 season.
Let's examine the viewing experience and features available for the second season of NFL coverage on Prime Video.
Broadcast Timing and Options
Thursday Night Football kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET weekly, but the Amazon Prime Video broadcast begins at 7:00 p.m. ET with pregame coverage. You can stay tuned to Prime Video after the game for the JCPenney Postgame Show and the TNF Nightcap presented by Allstate. Other sponsored portions of the broadcast include TNF Tonight presented by Verizon, TNF Kickoff presented by Subway and the State Farm Halftime Show. The announcers for the main broadcast are Al Michaels on play-by-play and Kirk Herbstreit as the lead analyst.
In addition to the main and SAP (Secondary Audio Program) broadcasts, you can watch through Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats, which displays additional information such as the quarterback's time to throw or an intended receiver's route. A closer look at the Next Gen Stats features can be found below. All three broadcasts had excellent video quality throughout the Vikings-Eagles game and ran in sync with each other when switching between them.
If you tune in after the start of the game, pause or switch between broadcasts, all of Prime Video's broadcasts offer an option called Rapid Recap that shows a compilation of highlights that have already happened in the game, as well as a prominently-displayed option to return to live action. Highlights are promptly added to both the Rapid Recap and Key Plays features, the latter of which allows viewers to watch key moments from the game on demand. All broadcasts can be paused, rewound, played from the beginning, watched from where you left off or fast forwarded when not being watched live.
Next Gen Stats Features
The Next Gen Stats broadcast deviates from traditional football broadcasts, but the information presented can be useful for statheads, bettors and fantasy football players looking for in-depth knowledge about the game. Using tags concealed within each player's shoulder pads, Next Gen Stats powered by AWS captures real-time data on every player's location, speed and acceleration. The "Prime Targets" feature shows which receivers have created the most separation from their defenders, allowing viewers to read the play in real time just like the quarterback. The "Defensive Alerts" feature highlights defensive "players of interest" likely to rush the quarterback and puts red circles under them pre-snap. Amazon is working to expand its list of Next Gen Stats, with a feature called "Pressure Probability" -- expected to debut later this season -- that captures the chances of a quarterback getting pressured as a play unfolds.
From a strategy perspective, the "4th Down Decision Guide" uses machine learning to calculate the likelihood of success for any 4th-down situation, as well as win probabilities associated with any 4th-down decision, though this feature isn't unique to Amazon Prime. Another feature that isn't unique to TNF is "X-Ray," which is present throughout shows and movies on Prime Video. X-Ray is normally used for information such as actor bios and character backstories, but for the Thursday Night Football broadcast, it's repurposed to provide team and player info, performance metrics and even the ability to purchase official NFL gear.
Upcoming and Past TNF Games
Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video will run every week until Week 17, though the Week 12 game between the Dolphins and Jets will actually be played and aired on Black Friday, with a trio of Thanksgiving games on cable TV that Thursday. Next week's game will feature the Giants visiting the 49ers on Thursday, Sept. 21. Amazon Prime provides a list of upcoming matchups that allows you to see every Thursday Night Football game scheduled for the remainder of 2023. A Friday morning search of Amazon Prime didn't reveal an option to rewatch Thursday's game between the Vikings and Eagles, but you could watch the 2022 Chargers-Chiefs Thursday Night Football matchup, which was played exactly one year ago on Sept. 15, 2022.
