Is an 18 Game Season Good For the League?

It sounds like the NFL owners are planning on voting in favor of extending the regular season from 16 to 18 games. I can fully see why they’d want to financially, ALL the owners would benefit from the extra home game, and get paid more in TV revenues. Nobody wants to go to the pre-season games, and even less people want to watch them. Cutting them from four to two is a good idea, but personally I don’t want to see them add onto the regular season. Cali4Dre and I debated via e-mail about it today. 

Cali4Dre: You going to give a reason why you’re against it?  More games means more games to watch on tv with your homies and have a beer.  And also more weeks of fantasy football!  They would probably take out some of the pre-season games away, and move the season up a week in August, which is better than anything else in August going on in sports.

Chappy: I agree from a fun standpoint it’s a good thing, and I wouldn’t mind the added fantasy weeks and drinking with the homies on Sunday’s as well. The only reason I’m against it, is that every year there are teams that are already in the playoffs, so they sit guys for the last two games. So if they add more games does that mean the best teams will be sitting guys for four games!?! If your team sucks, (like my Raiders have the last few years) you just want the season to be over. All this really does in my eyes is give a few teams an extra shot at making the wild card round… I feel like it’s not going to make things more interesting, but in fact less interesting at the end of the season…

Cali4Dre: All I got to say BOOOOO!!!!!  I would think a team that gets off to a crappy start, and hits full stride later in the season might actually WANT those last couple of games to give them a chance to get into the playoffs.  How many teams (like the Texans two years in a row, or Pats last year with a 10-6 record)  just barely miss the playoffs and really could have proven their worth with two more games?  Plus those fantasy players on good teams would still only sit the last two games of the season either way.  I don’t see them sitting more than that because they can’t be complacent with anything less than a 4 game lead at that point, which rarely happens, plus you need guys to stay in game shape and not get rusty going into the playoffs.  The best teams already get a first week bye…

Chappy: That’s the teams fault for getting off to a crappy start. Hell, four pre-season games should get you plenty prepared, so there’s no real excuse for a team getting off to a slow start. Every year towards the end of the year, I’m over the regular season. I just want to see the playoffs, and won’t want to wait the extra two weeks. It’s cool talking about different playoff scenarios and all at the end of a season, but teams that go 13-0 or 12-1 aren’t going to be fighting for a playoff spot, especially since they’ve probably beaten the other team trailing them once or twice in their own division games, and hold the tie breaker. I think it will take away from a good thing they already have going.  

Cali4Dre: You should definitely be watching soccer then…

Chappy: Why is that?

Cali4Dre: Cause it sounds like you get tired of football too quickly, you should watch a real sport like soccer!  But I can understand why a Raider fan would be tired of the season already by October!

Chappy: Haha, another thing I was thinking is, would it make games less meaningful? We know players take regular season games off in the NBA and MLB, so would the longer schedule make guys take more games off? We know that sometimes teams just don’t show up, but would that happen more with a longer season? I’m not saying it definitively will, but it’s just another reason I’m somewhat against it…

Side note, I think the Raiders are going to be a lot better this year, and I AM excited about that!

Cali4Dre: I think you need to stop drinking at work!

Chappy: Because I’m making sense, or because I think the Raiders are going to be better?

Cali4Dre: No, I don’t think players will take games off, because NFL contracts are mostly based on incentive pay, less than half is guaranteed money… so it behooves them to play as much as possible and as hard as possible at all times to keep getting snaps and stats.

And YES, definitely thinking the Raiders will be better  🙂