NFL season is perfect. Start right after Labor Day, end the regular season right at the end of the year. Playoffs start in January, a perfect way to kill the January after holiday blahs. I’d kill that week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, but I love the Super Bowl coming at a perfect time of the year.
Many late season games will be meaningless. Do you think if the Patriots had 2 more regular season games to play last year that they would have gone all out to win? They’d already clinched their division and home field advantage. You’d end up with preseason type play in December/January.
Who cares if preseason games aren’t very good in August? August is a perfect time to have them. A little taste of NFL football, but people are busy with vacations and enjoying the last days of summer.
Injuries. No, I don’t want teams playing a 4th string player because of injuries during a long 18 game season. NFL football is a tough and brutal sport. There are many injuries in a 16 game season. Adding 2 extra games would multiply this.
The starters would. In preseason games, the starters are not playing most of the game. In a regular season game, the starters would be expected to play the entire game.
This goes with my comment about late season games. I don’t want to see regular season NFL games played by the second string.
You’re a baseball fan. Do you enjoy watching September games between two teams who are 20 games out of first place?
If pre season was not sold at full price, I would not object to it so much. They don’t even try. Yet they stick the season ticket holders full price for tickets they can often not even give away.
Owners will not agree to trimming the season. Sellouts are rampant. So making it a longer season is the only answer.
Of course you’re going to prefer it if your team’s in it, but lots of NFL teams are dead meat in the last few weeks anyway. Adding two more games won’t really change that.
The starters hate preseason games because of the risk of injury. If they add a couple regular season games and remove a couple preseason games, I’m all for it.
I can actually watch regular season games of other teams that I’m not a fan of and enjoy them. I can ONLY watch preseason games in their entirety when it’s my favorite team.
And to counter the “this will end up having teams play what amounts to preseason games at the end of the year because they’ve already clinched”, what about the fact that there could also be dramatic end of year turnarounds for teams that started badly and otherwise would finish 9-7 and JUST miss the playoffs?
It does cut both ways.
I wouldn’t mind it so much but I like the way things are right now for the most part.
The thing that’s bothering me is the NFL’s attempt to globalize it’s product, robbing fans and owners of a home game played in Europe or wherever.
Of course, this move is likely all about money anyway (the adding reg season games). The owners make far more money off regular season games then they do on preseason ones.
IMO, an 18 game schedule could be worked out, but it would absolutely require a second bye week to help with injuries and fatigue. However, I think the 16 game schedule works out and adding another bye week would STILL be a helpful in keeping the quality of game high. Here’s my plan
Get rid of the few pre-season games that make some teams play 5 pre-season games. That’s just ridiculous overkill.
Start pre-season one-week earlier so they can keep the hall of fame game and make room in the season for 1 more week.
Guarantee each team one bye in the first half of the season and one in the second; even better if they can guarantee a minimum number of games between them. It’s horrible to see a team get a bye in week four when they’re all healthy, then get beat up by the time they’re making a play-off run.
While we’re at it, guarantee that any games between teams in the same division will also happen at least a certain number of games apart. Nothing bothers me more than seeing the 'Skins play the Cowboys twice within three weeks of eachother. It’s entirely possible that one key player could be out for both games or one could be in the middle of a hot or cold streak and thus less well represent which team is better. Besides, I just saw the same game two weeks ago.
To keep things interesting, since there will be two weeks without byes, keep one of those for openning week and one for the last week. This way you have the maximum number of games for openning week so everyone can watch their team the week. It also allows the most games for the last week, which helps the networks the most chances to show the most relevant games when there’s the highest chance for irrelevant ones
I also think it’s unfair to make a team that didn’t have a bye play a team that did. Not only is one team more rested, they’re also more prepared. I think the best way to handle this is to give a whole division a bye week together with one set of their 3 intra-division games for a 4-week block. To keep it interesting, try to keep the bye week at the begining, which is possible for all but the division which has one of their byes on week 16 and 17. This also fixes #4.
5b. If 5 doesn’t work because of scheduling inbalances (always having 16 from one conference and 12 from the other), schedule two divisions from opposite conferences to split their byes. For instance, say NFC East and AFC split weeks 4 & 5, so the Cowboys, Giants, Patriots, and Dolphins get week 4 off then week 5 Redskins, Eagles, Jets, and Bills are off while the Cowboys play the Giants, Patriots play the Dolphins and week 6 Redskins play the Eagles and Jets play the Bills. In fact, this may be preferable because it probably keeps it more interesting since there’s always something going on in your favorite team’s division.
The benefits:
Longer NFL season without adding any games, and only losing a couple of pre-season games.
More prime-time games because there would now be one whole extra week of Thursday, Monday, and Sunday Night games; not to mention more regular 1:00 and 4:00 games. The extra Television revenue from that would likely equal or surpass the loss from a couple of pre-season games they lost.
Fewer injuries, more rested players. This means more exciting games through the whole season. This can’t hurt revenue either.
Definitely they should replace two preseason games with regular season games.
More football: Yay!
Fewer preseason games; they’re boring, and they’re a huge rip-off for season ticket holders, who are forced to buy the preseason tickets at the same price they pay for regular season games.
Most importantly, IMO:
Bigger sample size. Basketball and hockey have 5 times as many games to figure out who’s good, while baseball has 10 times as many. With only 16 regular season games, luck plays too large a role in postseason selection. A couple of close wins and/or lucky bounces, and it’s very easy for a team with 6-10 talent to make it to 8-8; throw in an easy schedule on top of that and it’s just as easy for that team to make it to 10-6 and a playoff berth. Two extra games doesn’t fix this problem entirely, but it would help quite a bit.
Also note that parity is generally considered to be on the upswing, yes? The closer teams are bunched together talent-wise, the more games you need to rank them accurately. If current trends continue, a 16 game schedule will quickly become obsolete.
Here is another article on the proposed longer schedule.
I’m really not liking this, even though I"m in the minority. I’m thinking some of this is a smokescreen for more international regular season games.
The 16 game NFL regular season is perfect. It’s has perfect timing, starting right after Labor Day and wrapping up at year’s end. Then, we get a month of playoffs and the Super Bowl.
Dragging the season into February isn’t a good thing. Sure, snow games are fun every now and then, but that’s because they’re a novelty.
Also, I’m sure the NHL and NBA won’t be thrilled about such a move. Interest and coverage of the NBA/NHL spikes up after the Super Bowl as they have a 2 month window before MLB starts.
I also stand by my point that you’ll see more teams phoning it in at the end of a season. I’m not sure the 15-0 Patriots would be playing starters for every game with the division and home field advantage already clinched. That goes double if they’re playing in sloppy conditions in January/February in Boston, Buffalo, or New Jersey.