DANA POINT, Calif. -- Once, the NFL talked about reducing its preseason schedule and increasing its regular-season games. Now it looks like the league is ready to take the leap.
Expect no vote on the subject at this week's league meetings here, but you might look for one at the NFL meetings in May. Commissioner Roger Goodell is, and he's behind the move to expand the regular-season schedule to 17 or 18 games.
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| 'This is something we want to pursue and make sure we fully understand,' Roger Goodell says. (Getty Images) |
"This is something we want to pursue and make sure we fully understand," Goodell said. "It's improving the quality of the content."
Translation: The league thinks you'll like the next menu better than the one you're holding.
Now, let's get down to what we're talking about: Players are paid for 20 games, no matter if the games that count are 16 or higher. So they’re paid for 16 regular-season games and four exhibition contests, but that's now. In the future, that ratio could be 17 and three or 18 and two, and don't ask me which. There just seems to be support for expanding the number of regular-season games.
"I'm for it," Houston's Bob McNair said. "It could be 17 or 18. I don't have any preference at this point because there are a number of issues that still are to be determined, such as roster sizes, what do you do with your rosters and what do you do with injured reserve? Can you carry more, for instance, or do you let people come off injured reserve after, maybe, six weeks? And what do you do with byes or open weeks? Do you have maybe two to give people a break? So there are a lot of issues. The key is we want to do whatever will add value for the fans, and that's one way we can do that."
There are a couple of things to keep in mind here. If the league expands the regular season it almost certainly will expand it from the back, not the front. There is no way TV will agree to a schedule that has the season opening earlier than it does now, which means you push the regular season into January ... and that means you push the playoffs into February.
The Super Bowl already is there, but the playoffs that precede the league championship game are always in January. That would change. So would the regular season ending in December, and I think you can see where this is going: More cold-weather games. But if the NFL has Pittsburgh playing a home playoff game at night in January, it probably isn't all that concerned about having it play a regular-season game ... or two ... there that month.
I can now.
If the league goes to an 18-game format, insiders said, it would include two byes and push the Super Bowl to President's Day weekend. If it's 17, it would stay with one. Eighteen regular-season games is easier because the scheduling is easier -- with nine games each home and away. But a 17-game format would present more of a problem, with teams taking nine home games every other season.
That I get. But this I don't: If the league goes, say, to 18 regular-season games how does it expect to have starters ready for two exhibition games in five days? Clubs would play one weekend, right? Then they almost surely kick off the following Thursday. So how do you expect players to go for something like that?
"Good question," a GM said.
There is also the concern of injuries. More regular-season games probably means more injuries because starters generally don't play any of the four preseason contests in their entireties. That means the NFL wants to hear from the players as much as it wants to hear from the networks.
"Players are paid for 20 games," McNair said. "Some people think they aren't paid for preseason, but they are. They share in that equally. Players stay in such good condition now, it's not the way it used to be where they play themselves into condition. Now they don't do that. They're ready to play when they walk into training camp."
Owners aren't ready to vote. Not now. They want more information. But, trust me, once they have it, we will have an expanded regular season.
"It's something we'd certainly consider," Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay said. "You have to look at every aspect of it. I haven't seen the whole thing broken down in terms of positives and negatives and how it affects everything from A to Z. But, based on everything, I think there's a likelihood we would make a change there."
