Let’s face it. Football is a contact sport.
When I played freshman football, and when I say that I mean the 9th-string defensive back, I remember how practice was–hard hits, lots of sprints, drills, and then followed by more hard hits. By the time October rolled around, you were ready for the season to end.
Your body ached, your legs were like jell-o and it was an accomplishment to not experience a sore back and stinging chest when you woke up in the morning. That season was ten games.
The NFL owners and commissioner Roger Goodell are considering expanding the regular season to 18 games. If 16 weren’t already enough, you now get two more games that matter.
Instead of four preseason games and 16 regular season games, the owners and commissioner are strongly considering adding two more regular season games, and cutting two games from the preseason.
Starters typically only play in the first half of preseason games, and even then it is simply to get used to working with the team and getting repetitions in on offense, defense and special teams. However, adding two more games to the regular season requires them to play that many more games.
The justification: more games that are meaningful. According to Goodell, an expanded season would allow fans to watch games that are…more worth watching.
As a fan myself, I actually enjoy watching preseason games. That way, I get a sense of the roster, who is on the team and witness the back ups showcase their talents.
If anything, adding two more games to the regular season is even more meaningless. If a team clinches a playoff berth, then they will sit the starters in meaningless games during the end of the season anyway.
I know the NFL is doing this as a way to attempt to bolster attendance in an industry that has seen a decline in average attendance, but this will not change much. The collective bargaining agreement expires after this season, and since negotiations are about as resolved as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is not a great way to make an impression on the player’s union.
Going back to what I said about the nature of football, it is a grueling and exhausting game, that is dangerous, physical and above all, very injury prone. Playing an extra two games drags out the season even further, and risks even more injury to players.
Steelers receiver Hines Ward made this point when he told ESPN the ramifications of an 18-game regular season.
“I’ll probably be the last double-digit guy,” Ward told ESPN, referring to an athlete playing ten or more years in the NFL. “The 10-year guys you won’t see anymore, except for our quarterbacks. The running backs, you’re really looking to see a short lifetime span. The season’s just too long [already].”
You can kiss by that saying that “records were meant to be broken.” You can’t break a record if you can’t even stay on the field; injuries are becoming a recurring theme in sports, especially the NFL, where hard hit after hard hit leaves a player with a concussion, sprained ankle, dislocated this, torn that.
The season is already too long. The NFL had 12-game seasons in the 1950s and 14-game seasons in the 1960s. The hits are harder. The players are faster. The game has changed since then. That was then, this is now.
Owners are desperate for money; the commissioner wants to expand the fan base in order to get games broadcasted. The political spectrum of the NFL appears to be taking over, without keeping in mind that the players are the foundation for the business.
Collective bargaining agreement anyone? You piss off the players enough, not only will you not have an 18-game season, but quite possibly no season at all.
Fans just don’t have the money to go to NFL games right now. They are expensive you know. Adding more games that “matter” does not solve the problem. IF anything, it is the beginning of your problems.
In the end, the players are what people come to see. They want their ridiculous salaries, and they want to be healthy. An 18-game season jeopardizes that.
A very bold move Goodell, but also one that might just cost you. I think that the owners and commissioner need to worry more about the Collective Bargaining Agreement and getting to terms with the player’s union than worry about expanding the season.
If you don’t have the players, there is no season.