In the course of a busy day at the owners meetings in Atlanta, Roger Goodell raised the possibility of adding a 17th regular season game to the schedule.

Home field in the extra game would alternate between conferences and would come at the expense of a preseason game. Goodell spoke of the lack of quality of the preseason contests and said “it would create new revenue. Our thought process was we might reduce preseason by a game in return for that. Actually, the players would still play the same number of games. It could give us an opportunity to play a higher quality of football.”

Sure 20 games is 20 games but when one of them comes with a fat TV deal, it’s not quite the same thing. Gene Upshaw wasn’t quite so bullish about the idea.

“Any discussion we’ve had with them about playing another game, they’ve always said, they would like to do it, but they don’t want to pay for it. They say, ‘Why should you be concerned, you get 60 percent?’ But we also get paid on games played. We’re not going to agree to play an extra game and not get paid for it. That’s what they want us to do. That discussion is going to be very short.”

When this issue came up last year, it was tied into the league’s desire to play more games outside the U.S. without taking the product away from home fans. There’s no such talk from Goodell this year and the timing of his announcement is curious. On the same day you opt out of the CBA because you don’t like the amount of revenues going toward the players, you float an idea that would, almost certainly, cause them to ask for more money in return.