NFL Owners have constantly debated whether an 18-game schedule should make its way to the sport’s regular season, but on Friday they finally backed the proposal including a 16-game limit for players.
The issue of the season’s length has been discussed for several years within ownership circles with no changes being made to the current four preseason games and 16 regular season games.
If this new proposal is agreed upon by commissioner Roger Goodell, players will only be allowed to play in 16 of the 18 total regular season games for their NFL team. (RELATED: NFL Releases Incredible 2018 Season Recap Video)
The NFL needs to stop making this 18 game season thing happen. It’s never going to happen. pic.twitter.com/e2xWCrsiTB
— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) July 12, 2019
The change is clearly a financial move by the owners who are looking to squeeze as much profit as they can from advertisements, TV contracts and many other forms of revenue from the league.
With the league’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire in 2020, the NFL Players Association will have a say in this proposal and the future of possible scheduling changes.
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Listen, I understand that the NFL is a business and money being made is the number-one priority for the league, but this change makes no sort of sense at all.
The current system is working perfectly, as the season length is not a problem for this league — unlike the other three major sports. Fans are staying engaged in week 17 just as much as they are during week one.
The worst part of this possible change is the 16-game limit. Clearly, the NFL owners realizes how hard making it through a full season is for these players ramming into each other for 60 minutes. Having said that, this change basically brings the NBA’s problem of ‘load management‘ right into the sport of football.
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There are not many positives to this change, and I expect it to get scrapped pretty quickly. I would not completely rule out an eventual change to the scheduling of the season, but ideas like this would just ruin the sport.