“High Level Meetings” Between NFL & NFLPA re 18 Game Season BEFORE Expiration of Current CBA

[BuffBillsForLife]

18 games+2 byes+2 preseason is the obvious path forward.  17 games was just a clunky compromise during the last CBA.

[Ethan in Cleveland]

18 games, two bye weeks, and 1 or zero pre-season games. Expand the rosters to 58 and let them all dress on game day.  Get rid of the emergency QB rules.  10 man practice squad.

 

COVID proved Pre-season is useless.  I would not play my starters a single snap of preseason football.  

 

One last rule... change the salary cap. Have one cap for a single QB, and another for the other 57 guys. 

Edited July 23 by Ethan in Cleveland

[MJS]

They need to go back to 16 games and remove the extra wild card playoff teams while they are at it. It was perfect the way it was. Oh well.

[Matt_In_NH]

Anyone surprised?   17 was just grooming for 18

[Mr. WEO]

I'll believe it when Jon Wawrow tells me that Howard Millstein told him so...

[Don Otreply]

Being that “the league” was always intent on eighteen games, it was just a matter of this is being negotiated as to “fair compensation “ the players union would like to see, 

[Mark Vader]

35 minutes ago, Matt_In_NH said:

Anyone surprised?   17 was just grooming for 18

Not at all. The owners have wanted this for years.

[DaVinci]

This is a joke. Can you imagine our defense last year with one more game.

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, DaVinci said:

This is a joke. Can you imagine our defense last year with one more game.

 

we say that wistfully every February...

[nucci]

4 hours ago, Billy Claude said:

Ugh.  Just more teams playing in playoff games with half their starters out.   Go back to 16 games and increase to two bye weeks.  The greed of the league and players, since they have to agree to it, has no bounds.

it's a business that wants to increase revenue. Why is that called greed?

[Billy Claude]

11 minutes ago, nucci said:

it's a business that wants to increase revenue. Why is that called greed?

 

Because it will lead to a worse product on the field for their customers and increase harm to their employees. 

 

Doing everything possible to Increase revenue/profits without regard to consequences is greed.

 

 

 

[Malazan]

So is this where we come to take a victory lap about predicting 18 games despite it being obvious since before they went to 17?

[BullBuchanan]

The regular season is already becoming meaningless with the changes made to the game over the last 10 years. It's all just about trying to stay healthy and figure out the best plan for the tournament.

[Doc Brown]

6 hours ago, 4merper4mer said:

28 seems like a lot.

Screw it.  Make it 40 regular season games with four bye weeks.  Four weeks of playoffs.  Then three weeks for draft and free agency.  One week off to spend time with the kids and wife.

4 hours ago, MJS said:

They need to go back to 16 games and remove the extra wild card playoff teams while they are at it. It was perfect the way it was. Oh well.

I like the extra game as there’s more margin for error in the regular season.  Look at the Bills last year for example.

[LABILLBACKER]

24 minutes ago, Billy Claude said:

 

Because it will lead to a worse product on the field for their customers and increase harm to their employees. 

 

Doing everything possible to Increase revenue/profits without regard to consequences is greed.

 

 

 

Thank you....it always has and always will be about corporate (NFL) "greed" and the maximization of revenue. Don't kid yourself that they care about the increased injuries upon an 18 game season. The NFL will reduce it to 1 or no more than 2 preseason games for rookies and bubble guys. The NFLPA will 100% insist on 2 byes and potentially a roster expansion beyond 53.  And the season will start Labor Day weekend, ending with the SB on the last Sunday in Feb.  And there's very little the fans or players can do about it aside from a strike.  This odd/ even 17 game schedule is not long for the NFL.

[TheyCallMeAndy]

Laugh it up at a typo, but a wildcard to SB team would play 23 games that season. 
 

SB winning team may be the one with the deepest practice squad and speed dial. 

[Augie]

4 hours ago, DaVinci said:

This is a joke. Can you imagine our defense last year with one more game.

 

I don’t know about you, but I was warming up…..just in case. 

 

They will need to increase roster size and reevaluate rules for bringing people up to the active roster, etc. I don’t love it, but it’s going to happen so I won’t get worked up about it. Add another bye week, drop at least one preseason game and carry on. That’s how I see the dots being connected at these high level meetings. 

 

[Metal Man]

The main argument against this seems to be more games will lead to more injuries and that makes some basic logical sense.

 

However is there any data that shows there are a lot more injuries, serious and/or minor, in late season games or the playoffs than there are earlier in the season?

 

Seems to me, based solely off of observation watching the league for ~40 years, that the amount of injuries across the league over the course of the season is pretty static week to week. 

 

Again maybe there is data to contradict this but it also makes some basic logical sense that your risk of injury is the same any single time you step on the field whether it be in September or January.

[Charles Romes]

The stampede of greed is relentless. At times like this, I really appreciate the oft maligned and ridiculed Gary Bettman. The lonely voice of reason holding out against playoff expansion to protect the value of the regular season. 

[ChevyVanMiller]

18 games seems excessive. But I have to say that anything is better than the 14 games, 6 preseason game schedule that we had to suffer through until 1978. That preseason was brutal to get through.