Take a look around the NFL and just imagine that in two years, we could be looking at an 18-week schedule. While the common football fan would no doubt fall in love with the idea of more meaningful Sundays, could you imagine being a player and being forced to put your body on the line for two more intense weeks? I would shudder at the thought.
Look around and see how many injuries there already are. Subjecting these guys to two more weeks nearly constitutes cruel and unusually punishment.
It’s a well known fact that if you’re any good or have even a somewhat key role on a team, you’re not going to be playing more than one complete game total in the pre-season. A drive here, a quarter there, maybe a whole half. It’s really nothing more than a glorified scrimmage for guys trying to make the team. So, cutting down pre-season games won’t necessarily cut down on the injuries that would no doubt be more common with an 18-game slate.
Could you imagine the fantasy ramifications as well? Leagues, more and more, would be won with waiver wire guys like Jerome Harrison and you would be lucky to have three or more guys you drafted starting for your squad at season’s end.
All sorts of records would be shattered too. It’s bad enough that a lot of passing marks are falling in this aerial attack era; now imagine two more games worth of yards and TDs. We could see three or more QBs hit 5,000 yards in 2012.
I don’t even want to think about how many yards Chris Johnson could run for, or how many receptions Wes Welker could make. Or how many interceptions Jay Cutler could throw.
Really, the only people that an 18-game schedule truly benefits is the owners, who get one more regular season home gate and two more games worth of TV money each. If this goes through, let’s get pray the poor players will be rightfully compensated.
When would the season start, two weeks earlier or extended by two weeks? Green Bay in January is always a beautiful time of year to play football.