Open Rants by Brownsfan93

Why a 17^th NFL game is a bad idea.

The NFL seems dead set on adding a 17^th game to the season, and while on paper it seems to make sense financially I would like to give my take on why this is a bad idea.

These reasons will not be in any particular order.

1. Over Saturation

I enjoy watching football as much as anyone but there is usually such thing as too much of a good thing and I feel this applies to a 17^th game, one of the better things about football is that it’s not so common, its once a week and its regular season isn’t even a full 4 months unlike the 6 months long seasons for baseball and basketball which makes it more of a treat to watch since when its gone its gone for 8 months.  Adding a 17^th game just waters that felling down just a bit.

2. Lack of Necessity

Usually by week 16 most things are determined as far as playoff positioning and such and the 16^th week usually consists of 80% meaningless games, do we really need another week to figure out who’s good and who’s not in the NFL?

3. Attendance/Weather

The NFL has stated that if they play another week, said week would be in January.  Do most fans want to have to go see their teams play an extra game during the coldest month of the year; the majority of teams still play outdoors, so it’s a factor.  I can definitely tell you fans will not come out in large numbers in January to see a team that’s out of it and just waiting for their season to be over and the idea of adding a home game to the misery is just foolish greed, even for the good teams if they have everything locked up and are resting starters, I doubt their fans will brave the cold weather to see a bunch of backups play.

4. Player Safety Double Standard

The NFL claims to be all about player safety but I don’t know how this helps their case.  I don’t see how you can shorten overtime to 10 minutes (stupid) in the name of player safety and then at the same time want another game added to the season.  It makes no sense and is a massive double standard.

5. Odd number of games/Opponent choice

Having an odd number of games is just stupid, no one does it in professional sports, and it messes everything up.  Teams won’t have an even number of home and away games and they would have to rotate the extra game each year to make it even (not buying the NFL having a bunch of neutral field games, not enough demand).  Then there is the issue of who the teams would play, as of right now every game team plays is based on division, rotation, and record, this extra game would be based on almost nothing competitively

6.More Injuries

Injuries pile up throughout a season and by the end most teams have several, this just gives another opportunity to add more.  Half the leagues qb's were hurt this year, how does that add to your product?

Other Point

Im all for expanding the playoffs I think it should have been done when they went to 32 teams, as the current system was based on 28 teams, it could be easily done by getting rid of the #2 seed bye and making it a 14 team playoff without adding any rounds but adding a 17th game just doesn't really add anything to the NFL...