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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell visited on Thursday with Dan Patrick, and Goodell talked about the possible expansion of the regular season and, in turn, the potential shrinkage of the preseason. (The audio will be available on demand at Dan’s web site.)
Goodell said that a change would come in 2010 at the earliest, and that it would be tied to the ongoing labor agreement talks with the union and the broadcasting contracts with the networks.
But the contracts with FOX, CBS, and NBC run through the 2011 season, and the deal with ESPN expires after 2013. Thus, any deal done before 2013 would need to take into account a system for paying the NFL for the extra regular-season games.
An expansion of the regular season most likely would result in a reduction of the preseason, since Goodell mentioned several times the concept of the 20-game season. Goodell also might have committed an unintended slip regarding the number of additional regular-season games that the league is targeting when he said that the league would not be expanding the season, but that the league would only be “converting two preseason games.” If they keep the 20-game season, this would mean 18 regular-season contests.
But we’re not sure that the best approach is to go straight to 18. We think that it makes more sense to play 17 regular-season games initially, especially since it gives the league sixteen games that could be played at neutral sites in other countries (and, as we’ve argued in the past, Los Angeles) without having any team play more home games than any other team.
With 18 regular-season games, there would still be complaints and concerns regarding the inequity of some teams having more home games than others, unless 32 games are played at neutral sites.
Regardless, there are details that can be worked out at the appropriate time. For now, the good news is that the regular season could grow a bit, and the preseason could in turn shrink a lot.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Too many regular season games. If they do it, I hope they at least increase the 53-man limit.
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August 28th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I hope they don’t change the amount of games. It would cause records to be broken and then we’d always have to qualify them, i.e. “Well, he only broke it because he played in an 18-game season.”
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I guess it is safe to assume that Goodell has never played football.
This idea is beyond stupid. How much punishment can the human body take before it breaks down? The league does not need to increase the number of games in the regular season.
What needs to changed is the team schedules, not the number of games. The fact that the Patriots have one of the easiest schedules is beyond a joke. The NFL has turned into a league with no parity.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:04 am
ChrisJNelson says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I hope they don’t change the amount of games. It would cause records to be broken and then we’d always have to qualify them, i.e. “Well, he only broke it because he played in an 18-game season.”
That already has happened. The league didn’t always have a 16 game schedule.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Leave the 16 game season alone !
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I like the idea of playing football games in places where they don’t have professional football… like here in Cincinnati.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I am against playing more than 16 regular season games.
But if they do, make it 18 games and yes, raise the roster above just 53 player
And do not add another playoff team to the mix, as I fear an increase in the number of regular season games will lead to down the road
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Listen, I am a huge NFL fan with nothing to do (or watch) the rest of the year, so I say let’s expand the season to 30 regular season games. It will be a true battle of attrition. While we’re at it, let’s expand to 100 games and just play 2x to 3x per week (like hockey!) and even throw in a few double-headers! Screw it! Let’s take care of the intra-division games on one afternoon. Eagles vs Cowboys at 1 pm. and then again at 7 pm. (heck, that even gives them enough time for dinner b/t games).
Someone please take my Ritalin away from me!
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:19 am
you’d only have to play 16 games on neutral ground, if the schedule was moved to 17 games. To overcome TV and scheduling conflicts, they could play a Saturday game, on NFL Network, one in each of the first 16 weeks.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I’m all in favor of more NFL. However it’s a punishing sport, and I quiet sure that the quality of games will be diminished by injury and simple wear and tear of the players.
Increasing the roster size won’t help that much. You think another 3 people that couldn’t make the 53 roster are actually going to make it into games? No, coaches want the best players out there and 3 marginal players doesn’t qualify.
I said it once, twice, and I’ll say it again. Increase the number of games a team has to play to 17, and add another Bye into the schedule - R & R is the only sure means to recovery. The extra game played on a neutral site and get rid of two meaningless preseason games. It’s a win-win-win. NFL gets 19 weeks of real action, plays get a extra week to recover, and various neutral sites, like LA, London, Beijing, etc… will get NFL action in their back yard, increasing it’s popularity and sales.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Well if they go to 17, and in 5 years they propose going to 18, everyone is going to start complaining. Why not just go straight to 18.
And for the records, regardless, there will always be ‘per game’ records. You might have a lot of running backs getting 1,600 yard seasons, quarterbacks will be breaking 4,000 yards like they’re breaking a sweat, but if people didn’t give such a meaningless crap about records this wouldn’t be a problem. Why do we hold records in such high regard again? They don’t do anything for me.
And like another poster said, teams need to be able to hold like 56 or 57 players on the roster to make up for the extra 2 games that could result in injury.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:26 am
My suggestion is 17 regular season games. 8 Home, 8 Away and 1 neutral site. The neutral sites can be in a foreign country, or a college stadium where there is no NFL blackout market, etc.). Think something like the Steelers playing a pre-season game at WVU a few years back. (That site would be far from neutral for the Steelers though. :)) Add another bye week and drop down to 2 pre-season games. Allow the teams to add “scrimmages” if they want more “games”. I think this would work well from the fan’s perspective.
From the owner’s, they’re losing a game from the pre-season, but the extra game should net almost $200M in new TV money. Is $6M/team enough to lose a home pre-season game they charge full price for?
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:27 am
If you expand the season I agree that you need to not only expand the roster but change the IR rule. Do it more like baseballs DL where baseball has the 15 and 30 day DL football should have an 8 game and a full season IR list.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:28 am
superawesomeasskicker: That would be a conflict with college football. Never going to happen.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:30 am
“With 18 regular-season games, there would still be complaints and concerns regarding the inequity of some teams having more home games than others, unless 32 games are played at neutral sites.”
Um . . . no. The two new games could both be played AFC v. NFC. One game against an opponent from whatever division in the other conference your team (and their whole division) played last year, and one v. an other-conference-opponent from next year. The specific opponents would be the teams who finished in the same divisional position as your team last year (similar to how some same-conference opponents work now). The “last year” team is always hosted by the AFC team, the “next year” game by the NFC team.
Unless I’m missing something, that would be 9 home and 9 away for every NFL team. Each team could schedule one home and one road pre-season game, and there’d be no inequity in number of home games.
This plan would also benefit the networks: every division winner would play 6 games the following season against other division winners. Super Bowl rematches would occur every year both SB teams won their division (this year, we’d get NE-DAL again instead.)
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Unless the league expands the number of teams, which is very unlikely, there’s really no need to lengthen the season. 16 games (plus possible playoffs) is already very draining on the players’ bodies. Plus there would also need to be some consideration given to expanding roster sizes, and coaches would have to consider playing backups more in orde to keep their starters fresh for the whole season (which could possibly result in poorer performances?) Then f course there’s also the issue of some teams having more home games than others, which is a legitimate concern, as some teams have great homefield advantage. This whole business of lengthening the season is probably more trouble than it’s worth, except to the relatively few people whose monetery gains will increase. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I’d prefer it stay 16, but I think it makes more sense to jump to 18 than 17. With a neutral 17th regular season game, that leaves an odd number of preseason games, which means some teams will have 2 home preseason games, and some only 1. I don’t think owners want to part with the revenue of a home game every other year.
My gripe about an 18 week season is that a 2 week preseason would probably be too short to evaluate roster battles, which might mean less out-of-nowhere undrafted stars.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Um, hello?
The NFL didn’t start out with a 16-game season. It used to be 14, and there weren’t four divisions in each conference.
The game evolves, people. The sanctity of 16 is just as ludicrous (and fluid) as a kid today who can’t imagine a world without cell phones and personal computers.
Let’s see the Patriots try and go 22-0 — that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Copyright and print THAT on a ball cap & T-shirt destined for South-Eastern Guatemalans!
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Actually I’d be in favor of a Monday Night Doubleheader. One of those later night games could be the LA showcase games.
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I heard Mercury Morris supports the 18 game regular season. Wonder why?
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Something should be done. It is crazy that the preseason of such a sport as the NFL is a full 25% of the regular season. With all the practices and scrimmages these pros take part in, two preseason money-grabs should do just fine. I can’t wait to get two more meaningful weeks of life each year!! Let them figure out the logistics of it…just get it done!
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
This is stupid. The 16 game season is perfect. What they should do (if anything) is drop at least one preseason game. Players have too hard a time lasting the season as it is.
How about 55 man rosters and getting rid of the stupid inactive rules?
I’m hoping this is just a barganing chip for the CBA negotiations. The schedule and number of playoff teams is perfect. We don’t need any more games, any more teams in the playoffs or any more teams either. 32 is the perfect number.
Now, if they moved the Jaguars to LA, made a rule that all West Coast teams got to play their road games at 4PM eastern and came up with a spring developmental league, I’d be all for those changes.
But this is stupid.
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Hockey is also a punishing sport, and they play upwards of about 70 games. I would argue Football is much more punishing, but adding one game isn’t going to have too much of an effect. Besides, they’ll probably just reduce the preseason schedule by one useless game. Good move Goodell.
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
@BBWC1986 - Football does have the PUP list where the player is unavailable to week 6(or 8, I’m not sure). And if a major player goes down like a Tom Brady or a Peyton Manning, and there’s a chance of them returning in that particular season, they won’t be placed on the IR.
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August 28th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Stay at 16 and reduce pre-season games to three. I don’t need my Superbowl in the middle of February. What’s worse it this would move the playoff games to later in January with an even bigger chance of weather being a factor in the Northeast. The Winter’s worse weather comes between Jan 15th to February 15th.
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