Two More Games

At their annual meeting, the owners of all of the NFL teams are considering adding two more games to the NFL regular season moving it from a 16 games season to 18 games.

This is a terrible idea!

The original plan was to take two of the four preseason games and make them count. However, coaches felt they wouldn't be able to give prospective starters a fair shake if they lost two of the preseason games so this idea was scrapped. But not the whole idea. Now they are talking about adding these games to the end of the season.

Here's why this idea is for the birds (and I don't mean the Cardinals, Falcons, Eagles, Seahawks, or Ravens).

First and foremost: Injuries. The human body can only take so much punishment even if you are in prime condition. Compound that with the fact that a hit week sixteen is exponentially harder to take than a hit week one. Now we are talking about week 17? Week 18? With a hit week 18 being like 3 week two, this would also shorten the careers of players even more. Instead of being football-ancient at 30, now running backs have to hang up their cleats at 28. Imagine what that would do to players salaries! They already claim they need to make millions upon millions because their tenure is so limited. With an 18 week season, it would be even more so.

Second: Exposure. There is no question that the NFL has taken over from Major League Baseball as America's favorite game. Why is that? It has a reasonable season length. Or rather, it has the perfect season length. Every game in the NFL is a must see game. Every win is important. Every loss is crushing. What do people say about the other three major sports? Their seasons are too long! Let's compare them:

MLB

Regular Season...162 games
Playoffs...........11 to 19 games to win the World Series
Months playing...April to October
Total games......173-181

NHL

Regular Season...82 games
Playoffs...........16 to 28 games to win the Stanley cup
Months playing...October to May
Total games......98-110

NBA

Regular Season....82 games
Playoffs............16 to 28 games to win the Championship
Months playing....November to June
Total games.......98-110

NFL

Regular Season...16 games
Playoffs............3 to 4 games to win the Super Bowl
Months playing....September to February
Total games.......19-20

Why would they want to start down the road that leads to disinterest? Why did the XFL and Arena football leagues fail? Because football is 16 hard fought games and a short Championship tournament. That's why.

Finally: Money. How does money make this a bad idea? Because that is what is fueling the push for this change. If the NFL expands it's season by two weeks, not only would we have the Super Bowl on President's Day, but the league could charge more for the network and satellite contracts (The most recent of which had the Satellite NFL provider paying the NFL $1 Billion per year!)! The owners could charge more for season tickets. They may end up alienating more fans with their money grabbing ways (see NFL Network) just like baseball did by taking Friday Night Baseball off of free TV.

Keep the season at 16. Accept your $1,000,000,000 per year and be happy.