[Steve Kuffrey]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1610190

From 16 to 18 games, sounds good to me.

[Tarin]

2 more weeks of Fantasy Football!

[PittPanther]

If it means they will cut down to 2 preseason games, ok, I guess it might be ok.

However, my feeling is that it just might be too long a season and that we might see some seriously watered-down football with a greater frequency of injuries and meaningless games.

Guess I'll have to wait and see.

[twins15]

Sounds very good to me. More regular season games and less preseason games is always a plus in my books.

[statfreak]

I'm all for cutting down preseason game, but am deadset against expanding the schedule to 18 games.

The only reason they'd expand the schedule is to make more money. Pure and simple.

Yes, I'd love to watch football year round, but adding two games to the current NFL schedule would be awful. I don't need to see my Super Bowl contending team have to play the Bengals or some other retread team and watch my star QB or RB suffereing a season or career ending injury. Oh, sure with more games they probably will let all the backups play against the scrub teams and save the stars for the games that matter. Great, now I get to watch some guy who can't carry Brett Favre's (or Vick's, or even Tommy Maddox's) jock strap schlub it up on the field.

Also, I am tired of records being artificially broken because today's players play more games. Expansion of any sort, whether it be adding more teams or more games, is never a good thing.

Guess I just cherish history too much... yes let's bastardize all of our pastimes and sports. Who cares about tradition anyway?!?

[streetballer67]

I don't see a need to expand the regular season. I think the amount of playoff teams should move up to 8 instead of 6 though.

[Le Grande Orange]

The NFL is late to the party on this one. The CFL did this type of change way back in 1986.

[Long_Long_Name]

Originally posted by Steve Kuffrey

From 16 to 18 games, sounds good to me.

I thought there were 18 games .

[Delgadodawg]

Originally posted by sttfrk
I'm all for cutting down preseason game, but am deadset against expanding the schedule to 18 games.

The only reason they'd expand the schedule is to make more money. Pure and simple.

Yes, I'd love to watch football year round, but adding two games to the current NFL schedule would be awful. I don't need to see my Super Bowl contending team have to play the Bengals or some other retread team and watch my star QB or RB suffereing a season or career ending injury. Oh, sure with more games they probably will let all the backups play against the scrub teams and save the stars for the games that matter. Great, now I get to watch some guy who can't carry Brett Favre's (or Vick's, or even Tommy Maddox's) jock strap schlub it up on the field.

Also, I am tired of records being artificially broken because today's players play more games. Expansion of any sort, whether it be adding more teams or more games, is never a good thing.

Guess I just cherish history too much... yes let's bastardize all of our pastimes and sports. Who cares about tradition anyway?!?

Exactly!

[Eric]

At first I thought that this would help teams that clinch their division early and let them play scrubs while the rest of the playoff hopeful bang up each other late in the season. Then I realized that the best overall record is really important so said team can't lighten up too much.

The problem with 18 games is that lots of records may wind up with asterisks because of the extra two games. But are there as many purist football fans as there are purist baseball fans? I, for one, do not remember who caught the most passes or had the most sacks in one seaons.

On a side note, it's interesting to note that in baseball, the home run and stolen base records are the only single season record that has been broken since the season was expanded to 162. I exclude saves because the usage of relief pitchers have changed since the early 80's.

I wonder what football records are likely to be broken if 2 extra games are played.

[EagleEye_0]

Marvin Harrison and Michael Strahan

[TC Dale]

I am not sure. Football hasn't changed their game in a while, it sounds interesting on the one side, but I am of the school of 16 is fine, really.


18 games....that means we could see two rounds of wild card playoffs coming down the road?

Let's play till spring......why not? lol

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally posted by sttfrk
Also, I am tired of records being artificially broken because today's players play more games.

Originally posted by Eric
The problem with 18 games is that lots of records may wind up with asterisks because of the extra two games.

The NFL started playing a 16 game schedule in 1978; it played a 14 game schedule from 1961-1977; and it played a 12 game schedule from 1947-1960.

This means the NFL spent 14 seasons playing 12 games, 17 seasons playing 14 games, and 26 seasons (including the season just underway) playing 16 games.

In comparison, baseball has been using a 162 game schedule in both leagues since 1962, which works out to 42 seasons.

Given these numbers, baseball has had a lot more stability in its season lengths that football has. I wonder if there was a big outcry about statistical continuity in 1978 when the NFL season jumped from 14 to 16 games...

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally posted by sttfrk
Yes, I'd love to watch football year round, but adding two games to the current NFL schedule would be awful. I don't need to see my Super Bowl contending team have to play the Bengals or some other retread team...

I doubt this would be the case, given the way the NFL currently handles its scheduling system. They wouldn't get games against teams they weren't likely to play anyway.

Most likely the extra games would be additional intra-conference contests, against teams who finished in similar position in their division.

Currently, a team plays each divisional opponent twice (6 games total), it plays all the teams in another division in its conference (4 games total), it plays all the teams in a division in the other conference (4 games total), and finally 2 additional games against teams in its own conference, allotted by position. So, for example, a first place team plays the 2 first place teams from the other two divisions in its conference.

The proposed 2 additional games would probably, for example, match the first place team against the 2nd place teams from the other two divisions.

[Tarin]

Ok, here's the real issue and the real reason this is a stupid idea. They are talking about this because of the criticism for people like vick and pennington getting injured in the preseason. Why is it stupid to shrink the preseason and expand the regular season? Because a frontline starter is at the bare minimum twice as likely to be injured in the regular season than they are in the preseason. Don't believe me? think about it, How many quarters of the preseason do the starters play? They'll be playing all 4 quarters of the regular season games.

[statfreak]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
I wonder if there was a big outcry about statistical continuity in 1978 when the NFL season jumped from 14 to 16 games...

I don't know... I was only 5.

16 games just seems like the perfect season length. As it is you only play 6 games in your division. Let's say you lose all 6 division games, but win the rest. You'd be 10-6 right now. That would have been good enough to win only one of the 8 divisions in 2002 (there would have been a tie in the NFC West, but the tie-breaker would have went to SF since they would have beaten the theoretical team twice).

Playing an 18 game schedule means you only play 1/3rd of your games against your division rivals. Really seems to me that divisions are meaningless. Might as well just have two conferences and let the top 6 from each make the playoffs.

[kq76]

I think that if the players can do it, play that many games, then do it. If not, don't. Players are in much better shape than they were 20 years ago, so I don't see how they couldn't play 2 more games (assuming they did not shorten the pre-season). I don't think the threat of injuries is a good enough excuse. There are always others ready to come in, which just might end up being better. And I love history just as much as anyone else, but I don't think that not expanding the season to keep records from falling more easily is a good enough reason to restrict the enjoyment everyone gets out of a sport.

[Skipaway]

Wouldn't 18 a perfect number for each team to play one game with everyone in the same conference, and additional one with everyone in the same division?

[Le Grande Orange]

It would, but then there'd be no interconference games. That'd mean some potentially interesting matchups would never happen, like, for example, Houston vs. Dallas. The AFC and NFC would become separate entities again like they were before the merger in 1970. Given that interconference games have been played every year since 1970, I find it unlikely the NFL would abandon them.

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by Le Grande Orange
It would, but then there'd be no interconference games. That'd mean some potentially interesting matchups would never happen, like, for example, Houston vs. Dallas. The AFC and NFC would become separate entities again like they were before the merger in 1970. Given that interconference games have been played every year since 1970, I find it unlikely the NFL would abandon them.

I agree with you, but the strength of schedule is way too important these days. Fringe teams often get into the playoffs by easy schedules. With the shedule I mentioned above, at least it would be fair for everyone.