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How the NFL should go to an 18 Game Schedule


ChaRisMa

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Rather than expanding the regular season, the NFL should be expanding the postseason. 16 teams, 8 in each conference (no byes) sounds like a nice deal. I've seen way too many 10-win teams miss since the turn of the millennium (after a long period without it happening), though it hasn't happened in the last two seasons. A number of teams, such as the Bears, Bucs, and most significantly, the Browns, have not recovered from missing out with 10 wins in recent years (the Browns in fact went winless last year). Plus the byes are sometimes more harmful to teams that have them than they are helpful.

I do understand that expanding the playoffs to 16 teams opens the door to worse teams than before making the playoffs. However, the Cinderella team is an important component in sports. If the good teams won all the time, sports would be boring as hell. Some NFL examples of supposedly bad teams succeeding in the playoffs include division winners with losing records upsetting teams with far superior records in 2010 and 2014 (one of which was the 7-9 Seahawks defeating the defending champions the Saints). Then we have a 9-7 Giants team winning it all that one year. In other sports, 8 seeds or wild cards have made the Stanley Cup Finals multiple times, one of which (2012 LA Kings) won. Over 30 years ago, a NBA Western Conference Finals was staged between two 40-42 teams guaranteeing a spot for one of them in the NBA Finals. And two teams that finished with single-digit positive win-loss differentials (1987 Twins and 2006 Cardinals) won the World Series.

Then you have the fact that it's been nearly 3 decades since the last NFL playoff expansion. In that time, the other major outdoor sports leagues in the USA, MLB and MLS (the latter only launching in 1996), have both expanded their postseasons twice. The NFL should expand their postseason to keep up with the Joneses.

So yeah, I would definitely expand the postseason first before giving any thought to extending the regular season, which even then I would have a very low chance of considering for the safety of the players.

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8 minutes ago, pf9 said:

Rather than expanding the regular season, the NFL should be expanding the postseason. 16 teams, 8 in each conference (no byes) sounds like a nice deal. I've seen way too many 10-win teams miss since the turn of the millennium (after a long period without it happening), though it hasn't happened in the last two seasons. A number of teams, such as the Bears, Bucs, and most significantly, the Browns, have not recovered from missing out with 10 wins in recent years (the Browns in fact went winless last year). Plus the byes are sometimes more harmful to teams that have them than they are helpful.

I do understand that expanding the playoffs to 16 teams opens the door to worse teams than before making the playoffs. However, the Cinderella team is an important component in sports. If the good teams won all the time, sports would be boring as hell. Some NFL examples of supposedly bad teams succeeding in the playoffs include division winners with losing records upsetting teams with far superior records in 2010 and 2014 (one of which was the 7-9 Seahawks defeating the defending champions the Saints). Then we have a 9-7 Giants team winning it all that one year. In other sports, 8 seeds or wild cards have made the Stanley Cup Finals multiple times, one of which (2012 LA Kings) won. Over 30 years ago, a NBA Western Conference Finals was staged between two 40-42 teams guaranteeing a spot for one of them in the NBA Finals. And two teams that finished with single-digit positive win-loss differentials (1987 Twins and 2006 Cardinals) won the World Series.

Then you have the fact that it's been nearly 3 decades since the last NFL playoff expansion. In that time, the other major outdoor sports leagues in the USA, MLB and MLS (the latter only launching in 1996), have both expanded their postseasons twice. The NFL should expand their postseason to keep up with the Joneses.

So yeah, I would definitely expand the postseason first before giving any thought to extending the regular season, which even then I would have a very low chance of considering for the safety of the players.

Expanding would be exciting but I'd be careful.  MLB was doing great with three division winners and a WC but the postseason has lost its luster since they added two WCs to each league. 

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22 minutes ago, pf9 said:

Rather than expanding the regular season, the NFL should be expanding the postseason. 16 teams, 8 in each conference (no byes) sounds like a nice deal. I've seen way too many 10-win teams miss since the turn of the millennium (after a long period without it happening), though it hasn't happened in the last two seasons. A number of teams, such as the Bears, Bucs, and most significantly, the Browns, have not recovered from missing out with 10 wins in recent years (the Browns in fact went winless last year). Plus the byes are sometimes more harmful to teams that have them than they are helpful.

I do understand that expanding the playoffs to 16 teams opens the door to worse teams than before making the playoffs. However, the Cinderella team is an important component in sports. If the good teams won all the time, sports would be boring as hell. Some NFL examples of supposedly bad teams succeeding in the playoffs include division winners with losing records upsetting teams with far superior records in 2010 and 2014 (one of which was the 7-9 Seahawks defeating the defending champions the Saints). Then we have a 9-7 Giants team winning it all that one year. In other sports, 8 seeds or wild cards have made the Stanley Cup Finals multiple times, one of which (2012 LA Kings) won. Over 30 years ago, a NBA Western Conference Finals was staged between two 40-42 teams guaranteeing a spot for one of them in the NBA Finals. And two teams that finished with single-digit positive win-loss differentials (1987 Twins and 2006 Cardinals) won the World Series.

Then you have the fact that it's been nearly 3 decades since the last NFL playoff expansion. In that time, the other major outdoor sports leagues in the USA, MLB and MLS (the latter only launching in 1996), have both expanded their postseasons twice. The NFL should expand their postseason to keep up with the Joneses.

So yeah, I would definitely expand the postseason first before giving any thought to extending the regular season, which even then I would have a very low chance of considering for the safety of the players.

Please not this. I don't want the NFL to become the NBA.

Plus having 8 teams in the postseason for each conference would eliminate the first round Bye in the playoffs, which still gives the top teams in the league something to play for even after they clinch a playoff spot. With how important getting a bye is these days (No team without one has reached the SB in 6 years) it still makes the regular season important and fun to watch. In the NBA the regular season is pretty much meaningless. Allowing 8 teams to make the playoffs makes it so a few more 9-7, 8-8 or even 7-9 teams will get in at the expense of taking most of the fun and importance of the regular season away. No thank you.

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I'm not really for the expansion to an 18 game season, mainly because I don't want to see a bunch of records be broken due to the season now being 2 games longer.

I also wouldn't want to have to watch a Geno Smith vs Brock Osweiler match up for the division either.

Also it would really irritate me to see the NFL imposing all of these stupid rule changes in the name of player safety and then see them expand the season by two more games. 

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43 minutes ago, Bolts223 said:

Please not this. I don't want the NFL to become the NBA.

Plus having 8 teams in the postseason for each conference would eliminate the first round Bye in the playoffs, which still gives the top teams in the league something to play for even after they clinch a playoff spot. With how important getting a bye is these days (No team without one has reached the SB in 6 years) it still makes the regular season important and fun to watch. In the NBA the regular season is pretty much meaningless. Allowing 8 teams to make the playoffs makes it so a few more 9-7, 8-8 or even 7-9 teams will get in at the expense of taking most of the fun and importance of the regular season away. No thank you.

I'd rather have that than a rise of injuries associated with expanding the regular season. You apparently didn't read my paragraph about the importance of Cinderellas in sports which also lists examples.

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17 hours ago, pf9 said:

I'd rather have that than a rise of injuries associated with expanding the regular season. You apparently didn't read my paragraph about the importance of Cinderellas in sports which also lists examples.

We still do get them. 

Just in the 21st century:

01 Patriots

03 Panthers

07 Giants

08 Cardinals

12 Ravens

The best teams should be the ones winning on average.

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Why waste time an energy finding a way to extend the season? Is there a single argument for 18 games other than money? Will the games be better? Will the season be more competitive? No. It's already a miracle if a team plays a whole season and makes it to the play-offs without at least one starter out for the season.

The NFL is one of the biggest sports in the world, making billions every year. They produce close, exciting games more regularly than any other sport I've ever watched, and each game - let alone season - is incredibly hard to predict.

Why risk diluting the product, or overexposure, just to make a bit more money? It's stupid.

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19 weeks with 3 bye weeks would be ideal. Same number of games played. Longer season with real games. Shorten the pre season game schedule but keep the length for practice purposes. The real season would start sooner. More money for the league and players but no more risk. 

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Before even considering that they should go to two bye weeks.

Gives us another week of football without adding wear and tear to players.

There's too many games each week to keep up with right now anyway, spreads it out a little more.

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I can't stress enough how much I HATE the idea of an 18-game schedule (almost as much as I HATE the idea of adding more than 4 teams to the CFB Playoff). 

DO.  NOT.  WANT. 

They should just keep the 16 game regular season, cut a preseason game or two, and give each team a 2 byes per year (especially the week before their Thursday Night games).

 

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11 hours ago, MKnight82 said:

Honestly there's too much NFL already.  They're over-saturated on TV 3-4 nights a week now for months.  I don't need any more NFL games.  

I agree. There are too many baseball games, and slightly too many basketball games... Football from September to December weekly is pretty good. 

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Will never happen, but if the NFL really cared about player safety they should do the following:

- Go back to a 14 game schedule.
- Get rid of Monday Night Football (no short weeks for any teams)
- Get rid of preseason entirely (maybe expand the practice squad for scrubs)

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