For a few years, WGNO had no NFL games outside of one simulcast wild card game from ESPN per year due to its ABC affiliation, and WDSU carrying the "Monday Night Football" games of the New Orleans Saints that were carried by ABC until the 2006 move of that package to ESPN. Until 2015, it carried Saints games that were produced as part of the NFL Network's "Thursday Night Football" package before that moved to a split between NBC and CBS. Thus, the only way the station would carry a Saints game is if they were a wild card or low division winner, and ESPN was chosen to broadcast that Wild Card Weekend game with ABC. This changed with the 2018 NFL season, when CBS' portion of the Thursday night schedule was moved to Fox and NBC's portion, except for the annual NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving night games, became exclusive to NFL Network. WGNO now only carries any Saints Thursday night games which are otherwise exclusive to NFL Network.