The league wanted to make a proposal to have an 18-game season. They have talked with players and they are apparently reconsidering their idea. They chose to make the proposal two months ago and they also wanted to extend the season by two weeks. Daniel Kaplan has reported that the NFL have dropped the idea for this and instead are favouring a 17-week season.
The owners of the teams were briefed on the change that came about in Houston this week. Kaplan has reported that there might not be enough support from the team owners and even the NFLPA to expand the game from the existing 16 games to 18 games. Of course, he cited an anonymous source when he released this information but either way, it doesn’t look to be going ahead.
There would be a lot of changes if this did go ahead, and there would certainly need to be a lot of discussion too. If the NFL did happen to expand the season that they have right now to 17 games, then they would probably reduce the preseason to try and accommodate for this. Sources have cited that this would then be two or three games.
Losing Revenue
Sites such as NetBet Sports are known for publicising the best NFL odds and they would need to overhaul their site in order to accommodate this change. That being said, if the change does go ahead then this would be consistent with other reported plans for the league. Some people are concerned as they believe that this would lose them revenue and it may even put extra pressure on players too. The NFL would offset this by trying to expand the playoffs so that they can do everything they can to make up for some of the revenue that they have lost.
Expanding to 18 Games Isn’t Going to Happen
The NFL has toyed with the idea of expanding to 18 games for quite some time now but the NFLPA director has stated that he doesn’t see this as being in the best interest of the players. He believes that in any circumstance, it would push players beyond their limits, and it would also make it much more difficult for them to stay safe. This could result in way more injuries and it would also make it harder for them to maintain their physical health.
Kaplan has noted that fans would be unhappy if they didn’t get to see all of the players on the field, especially if they had made the effort to buy tickets. That being said, this would only happen if the game expansion had a detrimental impact on the players.
The NFLPA have yet to comment on whether or not they would be remotely open to the idea of having a 17-game season. The talks are going to resume in the year 2020 and a lot of people have hopes that a good solution can be reached.
