Another money-driven bad idea

[Jacie]

NFL commissioner is considering expanding the season to 18 games by 2011.

Let's see, the teams are usually pretty banged up by December as it is. Yeah, let's make the quarterbacks take another couple of poundings before the playoffs and extend the season so that the Superbowl won't be played until, um . . . April!

[Aries]

They play 20 games a season now, if you include pre-season games. What they are considering is changing some games from pre-season to regular season so it would be the same number of games, but more of them would "count".

Your point is a good one still, since starters would play the entire game, whereas now they only play a series to maybe a half (at most) in pre-season games.

I don't know that it would necessarily extend the SB to a later date... they start pre-season games now around the first of August, so it's possible they would have two pre-season games, then the regular season would start about mid-August. You could be right, I just haven't heard anything proposed as to changing the start-finish dates of the season.

[ouleaf]

As far as I've heard, they are just scrapping one or two preseason games and turning them into regular season games. So I don't think that will necessarily extend the season any further. Preseason games suck anyways. You get to see your favorite players for a couple drives if you're lucky.

I don't really find a problem with this whatsoever. People getting injured is just part of the game. It happens. If you're really worried about it, then maybe give them an extra bye week or something. The more football the better, IMO.

[badger]

My guess is you'll see more teams do what they do during preseason - sit star players - when the games are gimmies.

If they REALLY wanted to do something to make a splash, expand the conference playoffs to 8 teams (16 total) and take out the first round byes.

[Aries]

My guess is you'll see more teams do what they do during preseason - sit star players - when the games are gimmies.


I'd really be surprised to see that... They didn't do it when the NFL expanded from 12 to 14 games, or from 14 to 16 games. There aren't really any games in the NFL that are gimmies.

You *might* start seeing them pull starters a little earlier with a significant lead, but I kind of doubt it. They're going to play starters until there's virtually no chance of a come from behind situation, and I think most coaches are looking to do that as early as they comfortably can as it is.

[badger]

Everybody's got a breaking point. Adding two games when they only played 12, or when they only played 14 to begin with might be doable. When it's 16 expanding to 18, some athletes might start to have issues similar to basketball and baseball pros that have longer seasons - injuries, fatigue, mental breakdowns start setting in.

It's like Aesop's camel sticking it's nose in the tent. How much further can you allow the camel inside until you find yourself sitting on the outside?

[Aries]

True, but it could turn out that adding 2 games when you only played 16 to start with is doable, too. :) Those same arguments were made the last two times the season was expanded.

You could also make the argument that today's professional athletes work year around at their sport, whereas when they went from 12 to 14 game seasons the average NFL player took several months off during the off-season, so they were less well conditioned. The NFL has also made a concerted effort to reduce injuries with better equipment, field surfaces, training and treatment, etc.

I just don't think you'd see much difference in how starters are used. I could be wrong.