OT: NFL moving to 17 game regular season
As part of this change, the preseason is also changing to 3 games only
Should only have 2 preseason games and salary cap should be increased, not decreased, SMH
i think the salary cap has to do with total revenue the NFL realizes. the players are guaranteed 48% of football revenue. the NFL is taking a hit, just like all the other leagues. i also thought i read that the league did not reduce the amount to the players as much as the formula provided for, as a concession for the extra reg season game.
extra reg season game makes little sense other than a simple revenue grab. i would guess that's a selling point to the players, also.
"...extra reg season game makes little sense other than a simple revenue grab."
Definitely. Sure isn't about CTE and protecting the players.
The players don’t have to play...they could do my job instead if they wanted to. Just saying.
extra reg season game makes little sense other than a simple revenue grab.
Is it even a revenue grab?
TV rights were just renegotiated and last through, without a contract mod that is, 2033.
I've read the gate represents about 10% of total revenue per club.
Well nobody really was interested in the preseason games. Thought 2 preseason tune-up games was quite enough.
NFL getting worse every year. Adding a 17th game when the NFL is all about "player safety" is comical to me. The NFLPA is toothless.
The NFL traded an uncompetitive game for a competitive game. In other words, they got rid of a meaningless game in which guys could get injured and replaced it with a game that counts in which guys could get injured. Coaches will just adjust so that starters still only play about one to one and a half games in the preseason. The borderline guys will still get the rest of the time. I'm... ambivalent on the overall impact of this. What would you like to see for player safety?
Tell me who actually plays in the 4th pre-season game? The starters and second stringers are already known for the most part. What's left are a bunch of depth guys fighting off practice squad players to make the active roster.
With expanded playoffs and an additional game, how much is that 17th game really going to matter?
I'd like to see a 14-game season with two bye weeks. The quality of play would improve tremendously. Those Thursday night games are pure dogshit.
With the public appetite for football, I doubt there will ever be a decrease to 14 games, but 16 with only 3 preseason? I'm good with that. Killing Thursday night? Please. While its a nice way to break up my week, I'd be much happier letting college football have Thursday night instead.
I don’t know if you can call them toothless. Salaries will definitely go up because of this. Television rights deals will increase, game day sales will increase, etc... They probably saw the $$$ and thought, why the hell not. We are not extending the season at all.
The NFLPA has less leverage than its counterparts in the three other sports leagues due to the lack of overseas options for players. If NBA players find themselves in the middle of a prolonged labor stoppage, they can always go to Europe, Turkey, Israel, or even China and make up some of the income they're missing out on. NFL players, on the other hand, are basically out of luck.
I would like to see NFL players get guaranteed contracts. As it stands, the NFL is the only major US sports league in which player contracts aren't guaranteed. Kirk Cousins' 2018 deal with the Vikings was the first (and as yet, only) fully guaranteed multiyear contract in NFL history. And the reason why the owners won't give them guaranteed contracts is the same reason why the players deserve them (i.e., heightened risk of injury). Unfortunately, in a battle between billionaires (most of whom have multiple sources of income) and millionaires, the billionaires always win.
The guaranteed money that they negotiate is the part of a guaranteed contract. Having guaranteed contracts doesn't increase their market value, they're still gonna make the same amount per year.
The billionaires won this battle without it ever being contested. I'm not saying I'm for guaranteed contracts, but that is so far beyond the NFLPA's reach. The fact that the owners could just steam-roll this through, without any sort of necessary approval by the union is laughable. The only the thing the union has ever gotten in recent years was the ability to celebrate on the field. The owners continue to win any battle that actually counts.
I wonder if this means that Labor Day weekend will have NFL games now, not just college.
Very doubtful. The NFL hasn't played on Labor Day weekend since 2000.
It was a subpar attendance and ratings weekend when they have played (which happened for most but not all seasons in the 1990s: the seasons in the 1990s where they didn't play Labor Day weekend provided a good control group in terms of assessing those statistics).
Most likely, Week 18 (Game 17) pushes the regular season further into early January, and the Super Bowl is more likely to be played on President's Day weekend.
Confirmed. The Super Bowl will be on February 13th.
I think it's more likely that they eliminate the week off between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. My sense is that the league would be reluctant to schedule the Super Bowl during a long weekend for fear that people's travel plans would have an impact on TV ratings.
Having the day after the Super Bowl off from work would be pretty awesome, I’ll give them that.
Labor Day is safe, NFL playoffs won't start until Jan. 15. Superbowls won't occur until on or around Valentines Day. Nascar probably won't like that as their racing "Super Bowl" (The Daytona 500) could occur on the same day.
2021 season stars Thurs. 9/9. Super Bowl on 2/13/22.
Right in the middle of the Olympics. I love football and I am sure I will be in the minority here but if the SB and Olympics are going on at the same time, even with the Olympics on a tape delay, I'll be flipping back and forth instead of having the TV on whatever channel is broadcasting the SB for 4 straight hours like normal.
Edit: Also, the SB is on NBC, wonder what they think of having their two once every four year main marketing events coinciding on the same day.
The Super Bowl takes place between 6-10 a.m. local time in China. There won't be any events of note going on in the Olympics, unless you really care to watch Cross Country skiing prelims or random curling matches. They can probably get something good scheduled to show after the end of the game instead of whatever police drama or sitcom they normally show.
To your second point, NBC likes the Olympics because it brings in viewers during otherwise relatively dead times (February and August) and also is watched by a lot of casual fans who otherwise don't tune into sports very much. They'll gladly give that up for a Super Bowl Sunday, the biggest TV event in the country and possibly the world.
How will Jeff Fisher save his job now that he can't go 8-8?
Eliminating a preseason game makes sense but I do wonder how this will affect teams looking to make playoff runs. It's an extra game with full-ish intensity versus a preseason game they rarely played.
good point...I have to wonder if they'll look to expand the roster authorization a bit as well.
as long as it doesnt negatively impact college sports, couldnt care less.
Even money the lions are the first to go 0-17
The Browns just handed me their beer.
As much as that is a humorous comment, you got to give credit to the Browns who made a run into the playoffs. I think a lot of us were pulling for them.
I was thinking same thing while typing. And I was hollering for them in the playoffs. But they're still the Browns.
Everyone wants to copy Michigan basketball.
Hey, means one more week of fantasy football. Sounds good to me.
Grab that money.
Seems strange that teams won't have an equal number of home and away games
Who knew! No surprise here.
I wonder how hard the NFLPA pushed for expanding gameday rosters, an extra bye week or salary cap increases. The way I see it, if you're going to force me to play another game, you should at least allow the roster to be expanded so I'm not responsible for a whole extra game's worth of snaps. You should give me another week off to recuperate.
You know, if Goodell and Co. really care about my wellbeing and all. And I think I just answered my own question in knowing that they don't.
So Dumb
Well, there go all the Jeff Fisher jokes I had....
just one more weekend I check the Lions score and go..."sigh... losing again. Same 'ol Lions"
March 31st, 2021 at 12:32 AM ^
It adds to the schedule imbalance, since the 17th game matches seeds with another non-conference division. That will increase parity. And the new (last year) 14-game playoffs also gives more teams a chance to play in the post-season.
I think both changes may lead to crazier playoff stories because there are far more upsets in the playoffs than people realize. It might make the Belichick/Brady run of nine SB appearances in 18 years even harder to match (that might be harder to match than DiMaggio's streak).
At least all the 17th games are hosted by the same conference, so schedules remain fair, even with the greater imbalance.
It gets rid of a pre-season game that mattered only to the hundreds of players who are just about league quality, but could use an extra look in front of coaches. I don't care about pre-season games from a fan perspective, but they improve the league for that reason alone. Still, it's a small issue and the larger practice squads and two extra active roster spots will help.
Several players have spoken out about the season being long enough, with everyone already dealing with aches, pains and injuries. That's the biggest argument against the change. If it weren't for that, I'd probably welcome it.