Under a new NFL policy, the NFL officially adopted a Thursday night game to open the season (something that was done for the first time the previous season), and no Monday night game in Week 17. The change was designed to maximize opportunities for scheduling between Week 17 and the opening week of the playoffs; in this way, no team could be disadvantaged by potentially having only four days between their final regular season game and a playoff game. Also, the ratings for the last game of the regular season were often low, and the game usually had no playoff meaning (the most likely reason for the scheduling move). To compensate for losing the opening night game (which was successful enough to be upgraded from cable to network television after only one year), ESPN got the Week 17 game that used to be on Monday Night, and aired it on Saturday.