Good Idea/Bad Idea-A Brief Look at the 18 Game Season

Teams with quality depth would benefit the most. If you’ve drafted well, you have plenty of guys on the roster who can spell injured or tired players and not miss a beat.

The injured reserve rules should be updated regardless of going to 18 games. If you can put an injured player on a 4-6 game disabled list, you could free up a roster spot for a practice squad player. A bench guy gets game reps, practice squad guy gets on the active roster maybe even sees some ST play, out-of-work player gets on a practice squad. Everyone wins.

If They added those 3 rules then yes……….

Is the problems with scheduling that adding 2 games will provide. There really is no way to symmetrically add two games to the current symmetrical schedule. What would define the criteria for the two additional teams that, say, Chicago will play this year? This would require a whole new scheduling structure.

Honestly, I thought the current scheduling structure was the best set-up that the League has come up with, and honestly, I cannot see a good way to re-adjust the schedule to ensure that teams play through the league at regular intervals.

Scheduling aside, as much as I would love a longer season, I see too many problems. The game won’t be the same. The game changed when the league went from 14 to 16 games, and I think that the league is on the threshold of overextending the season to the detriment of quality football. Look at how beat up running backs are getting with the number of carries they currently receive. Forte’s rookie year saw 369 touches. Look at the affect it had on his sophomore season. Those numbers, in an 18 game season, will become more commonplace around the league.

Rushers currently take about 18-20 carries a game average in todays game. That means about 290-320 carries a season. Increasing the number of games to 18 means those carries jump up to 325 to 360 carries a season. And those numbers are omitting the touches from receptions.

And backs won’t be the only players suffering. QBs will take more hits, as will receivers. Offensive linemen, who typically play all of the snaps they are healthy for, would add an average of 138 snaps of punishment a season (based on the 2009 league average of 69 offensive and special teams snaps per game per team). Defensive linemen will take similar amounts of additional punishment. Linebackers and DBs will have two additional games of cutting, tackling and block shedding.

All this adds up to a lot more punishment to a league full of players that are already stretched thin with injuries. Teams will have to deal with this somehow. I think we’ll see more subbing in of backups in most positions. To me, that equals a deminished quality of play. It also might facilitate some unintended consequences, such as furthering the use of the wildcat in order to try and manage the total number of snaps the starting QB will take, since you won’t likely see Peyton Manning being subbed by Jim Sorgi to accomplish that feat.

Maybe none of this will be an issue, but I firmly believe that the jump from 14 to 16 games changed the overall game of football, and I can see how the jump to 18 games could change the game more than some realize.

More football. another bye week, less worthless preseason games, more roster slots, the whole shebang.

As far as the games themselves go, and who they’d be against? I’d love to see them bring back a kind of rivalry type thing on the same four year cycle. For instance, at the beginning of the cycle lets say the Bears are playing the AFC North for the next four years. So just based on how it all works out, pick one of the teams with the same place in the division as the Bears in the AFC South/West/East. Whoever they picked would stay the same for the next four years, and would be both a home and away game for those four years.

It’d make those extra games mean something, and build up more of a tie between the two teams since you know you’d be seeing them twice a year for a bit, and rivalries are a great thing.

Eliminate 2 of the preseason games, yes.

Think how much we all look forward to the new season. If the season is in perpetuity, we’d all get bored anyway.

Too many games equals more injuries. This game is already played at a pace that would obliterate us mere mortals. There would be an unintended long term consequence that the players would have to live with, all for the sake of the almighty dollar.

There are quality of life issues folks, for the players and the fans. Divorce rates would skyrocket with an 18 game season.

40k a year, I’d say no, but hundreds of thousands – millions each year, more football is win

And leave the other 2 Preseason games in there so everyone has more time to see who makes the regular season roster. And I would think that an 18 game season would just wear out some of the starters even more than a 16 game season would because of how physically draining football is.

I also don’t want to see all of these old records broken with an 18 game season allowing more QBs to get over 5000 yards, or RBs getting over 2000 yards.

I would much rather have them as a regular season game so it would be worth the money.

Heck yeah. Just add 3-5 players to the full time roster. Love this line….

you’re looking at nearly 6 months, start to finish, for a season. Is that too much?

To quote the Cure- “It’s never enough.”

I think extending the season to 18 weeks would be good but give each team 2 bye weeks… keeping the 16 game season intact, the players won’t have to play 2 more games, but will have an extra week off to heal up. And the networks will get an extra week of ad revenue.

Win/Win

They should just shorten the preseason to just three games. First two games used to evaluate your players and third game play your starters a little into the 3rd quarter.