NFL To Play Wednesday To Clear Way For Obama Speech

On any given ... Wednesday?

This week NFL officials announced that in September, for the first time in more than 60 years, the league will play a regular season game on a Wednesday. And not just any game, but the 2012 season opener, which will feature the Super Bowl champion New York Giants (their opponent has not been announced).

The NFL made the move to avoid going head-to-head with President Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Sept. 6. The Rams and Lions played the last Wednesday game in 1948, according to the league.

Rescheduling because of outside forces is not in the NFL's standard playbook. In 1963, the NFL stuck to its regular schedule just two days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. However, in 2001 the league postponed all of its Week 2 games following the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 2010, a game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Eagles was postponed because of a blizzard in Philadelphia. The game was moved to Tuesday, the first time that day of the week had seen any action since 1946.

Sunday's still the kingpin. Monday's an event. Thursday is usually the night of the season opener and resurfaces for games in the last several weeks of the season. Saturday even gets in there at crunch time.

As for poor ol' Fridays, they're still stuck with preseason games.