Andrew Whitworth appreciates prime time games but would like alternatives to Thursday Night Football

Thursday night games are difficult, most players will tell you. After playing a game on Sunday, the weekly schedule/routine is accelerated. Instead of treatment, film and working on nicks and bruises on Mondays, the team is diving into the next game. Practices on Monday are extremely light (while still doing treatment and films), if they're even conducted at all (aka, Cleveland). Tuesday, normally an off-day for players, is a bit more like regular practice and Wednesday is essentially a walkthrough -- such as the sessions that they have on Saturday.

Most players that have voiced their opinion, do not favor Thursday night games, citing the hypocritical nature of the league's ambition to protect players. Bengals player representative Andrew Whitworth understands the desire to have more primetime games from a business perspective, but would prefer another way instead of having them on Thursday nights.

"I wish there was a different way to do it for sure. I don't think there’s a player in the league that doesn't want a way to get a little bit of an ease off the body and do something different," Whitworth said via Bengals.com. "But the truth is college football has kind of taken that slot on Saturday nights now, so Saturday night games don't really exist like they did when I first got in the league. I wish we could find a way to do it differently. There’s no doubt about it. You could have more 4 o'clock games. Have an extra Sunday night game. There’s got to be ways to find more prime time games and get more teams and (cities) that are interested in seeing their teams play."

Makes sense to me -- remember the Saturday games?

Bengals defensive end Wallace Gilberry has a completely different perspective.

"You sign up for it," Gilberry said via ESPN. "It's no need to sit here and be mad about it and talk about it. You sign up for it, and Thursday we've got the Cleveland Browns in here and we've got to turn this thing around and take care of business."

I like that. Short. Sweet. To the point.