The 2020 NFL season is a weird and unusual one thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that hasn’t changed Amazon’s partnership with the league.
There may not be crowds at most of the games and spontaneous postponements can happen at any moment, but you can still watch the weekly Thursday Night Football game on Prime Video and Twitch starting with Oct. 8’s matchup between the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’s the fourth consecutive season where TNF has been available digitally through Amazon’s platforms.
Other noteworthy games in the Prime and Twitch schedule include matchups between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills next week and the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers in early November. Viewers can choose to watch with the default Fox commentary team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, or an alternate feed with analysts Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer.
There will also be a new feed hosted by ex-NFL scouts Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah, alongside a slew of pregame coverage in the weeks leading up to Thursday night games on the Twitch Sports channel. Fire TV, iOS, and Android users can take advantage of the “X-Ray” feature to watch replays of specific plays in the middle of games, too.
Thursday night games have a bit of a negative reputation in the NFL world, as the matchups are often not compelling on paper (Sunday and Monday night games usually feature better teams) and a short practice week can result in poor play. That said, watching live sports without cable can be a pain and there are probably plenty of cord-cutters out there with easy access to Prime Video and/or Twitch.
If you’re seriously ready for some football, this is a lot better than nothing, even if it means watching a 42-year-old Tom Brady try to outscore a Bears offense that could generously be called “unwatchable.”