No 18-Game Season
No soup for you!
As the hope for a new labor deal dwindles, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith says the potential for an 18-game NFL season, one of the league’s proposals, is off the table.
“First of all, the league has never presented a formal proposal for 18 games,” he told SI.com. “But more importantly, it’s something that our players don’t want. Eighteen games is not in the best interest of our players’ safety, so we’re not doing it.”
In theory, an 18-game season sounds good — two more meaningful games of football.
In reality, it’s a cash grab by the owners and will probably result in more injuries around the NFL.
03/11/2011 - 12:50 pm
Thank God. Man, if last season had been 18 games, the Packers wouldn’t have had anyone left healthy on the squad by the time we made it to the Super Bowl…
03/11/2011 - 3:02 pm
really? 2/3 of you don’t want more meaningful GB Packers games each year? I guess i forgot how much we all love the offseason and preseason. maybe we can have a mid-year pro bowl like the nba, too?
don’t read into the poll more than the question it asks. i’m calling bullshit on most of you.
03/11/2011 - 3:08 pm
also, keep in mind that the really good teams play 18-20 games each year.
03/11/2011 - 4:36 pm
Expand the rosters, have 2 bye weeks during the season. A player can get hurt in week 1 or week 21. It’s a natural progression of the game. The journey is the reward.
03/12/2011 - 7:49 am
Why not a 34 game schedule, 6 weeks of pre-season 4 bye weeks and 8 weeks for play-offs? You’d all watch that wouldn’t you?
No. I wouldn’t. The season is long enough as is. Expanding out and you run the risk, like other league’s of there being throw-away games. It already happens to teams who are in week divisions at the end of the year. Adding games makes it forgivable for fans to miss games and permissible to shrug off a loss. I don’t want a baseball scenario where every team can lose a third of its games, will win a third, and the rest determines the winners (But 18 is divisible by 3, and 16 isn’t, so parity will dictate a lot of 6-6 teams in November).