18 game regular season

Originally posted by bigbad9er1:
if they move to 18 games they would have to expand the roster because of injuries

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
No. 16 is good. Guys are so banged up by the time you reach the playoffs now. It would be worse.

It will still decrease the overall quality of play IMO.

Take away 1 preseason game and add 2 regular season games. 18 regular season games and 3 preseason, making a grand total of 21 on the year. Only 1 more than what we have now.

do it like "real football".....play from August till May nonstop..one BYE week a month....2 trading deadlines....playoffs integrated into the season...multiple trophies to be won

YES. I would like to see an 18 game season. Actually I have a whole vision how this could change everything for the better.

The main reason is, I know playoff qualifiers will be further validated when teams have to play a larger percent of the league. Right now each team plays 42% of the total available competition in the regular season. So NFL teams actually qualify for the playoffs without playing a majority of the other teams in the league. By adding in 2 games, and ensuring these 2 games are always new matchups for the season, each team would then play 48% of the league. That is close to half, being that close to half you can then make a dramatic change....NO CROSS CONFERENCE GAMES EVER(except the SB and Pro Bowl)

1. Drop 2 pre-season games
2. Add 2 regular season games
3. No more games outside your conference
4. Each team will now play every single team in your conference in its quest to qualify for the post season
5. Playoff qualifications are now purely based on the results of this regular season for the entire conference top 6 seeding
5. Each team still plays division opponents twice
6. Playoff qualifications no longer considers divisional championships in its seeding, but Divisional Titles are still awarded
7. Increase the roster size to about 80(though I have not put much thought in this number)
8. Institute some kind of rule that no player can start more than 16 games, and play in more than 450 minutes in the season
9. Again those above numbers I have not put too much thought into
10. Perhaps QB would be excluded from this policy, but in my vision they also are not excluded

Originally posted by danimal:
YES. I would like to see an 18 game season. Actually I have a whole vision how this could change everything for the better.

The main reason is, I know playoff qualifiers will be further validated when teams have to play a larger percent of the league. Right now each team plays 42% of the total available competition in the regular season. So NFL teams actually qualify for the playoffs without playing a majority of the other teams in the league. By adding in 2 games, and ensuring these 2 games are always new matchups for the season, each team would then play 48% of the league. That is close to half, being that close to half you can then make a dramatic change....NO CROSS CONFERENCE GAMES EVER(except the SB and Pro Bowl)

1. Drop 2 pre-season games
2. Add 2 regular season games
3. No more games outside your conference
4. Each team will now play every single team in your conference in its quest to qualify for the post season
5. Playoff qualifications are now purely based on the results of this regular season for the entire conference top 6 seeding
5. Each team still plays division opponents twice
6. Playoff qualifications no longer considers divisional championships in its seeding, but Divisional Titles are still awarded
7. Increase the roster size to about 80(though I have not put much thought in this number)
8. Institute some kind of rule that no player can start more than 16 games, and play in more than 450 minutes in the season
9. Again those above numbers I have not put too much thought into
10. Perhaps QB would be excluded from this policy, but in my vision they also are not excluded

i already hate the idea of the 18 game season but i would hate it even more if the bolded took effect.

I mean, Soccer is a p***y game but the better guys like Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo have to play about 70-80 games a year. Usually they are on the field for the whole playing time, i.e. they run 90 minutes around.
Thats nothing against 24 additional minutes which the NFL pros have to play IF they extend the season by 2 games.

Originally posted by GuessWhosOn3rd:
Leave as is.

4 Preseason games is perfect.
16 reg. season games is perfect.

dont touch anything!

Agreed. As much as I want more football, the scheduling is perfect. Sure, preseason sucks for fans, but could you imagine how rocky our season would've started if we didn't have a training camp AND had only 2 preseason games?

16 Regular Season games is perfect. Come December, that playoff race is so interesting. Every previous game had great meaning. How many playoff spots and divisional crowns were decided as a result of one game? If you had 18 games, a loss or win has less impact, just because there's more games.

If there were more teams, then that'd be a different story. Maybe the next time we have expansion teams, they can make a decision then, but as it stands now... the scheduling is perfect.

Originally posted by communist:
I mean, Soccer is a p***y game but the better guys like Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo have to play about 70-80 games a year. Usually they are on the field for the whole playing time, i.e. they run 90 minutes around.
Thats nothing against 24 additional minutes which the NFL pros have to play IF they extend the season by 2 games.

different sports are different.

Really hope this never happens I love football but they are starting to over saturate themselves. Those Thursday night games are usually pure garbage b/c the team traveling is at such a disadvantage. But yet they are giving us more Thursday night games. I think you will see some really crappy football all year long on these Thursday night games.

16 regular season games is plenty , 2 pre-season games and 18 regular season games would greatly decrease the quality of football, the extra 2 games is an extra 2 games to damage and wear down the players ..keep the current system intact, the NFL is a cash cow already, this is just the owners being greedy

I am all for an 18 game regular season if they dump two preseason games. Really, preseason would be perfect with 3 games, but 4 is too much. And I always feel bad for those teams that have to sometimes play 5 (HOF game). Plus it would be more lucrative because, really, who wants to pay to go to a preseason game? I know I don't. But regular season is a different story. More real football would make me happier.

Plus, I want to see the Patriots go 18-0, then 20-0 including the playoffs and then lose the Super Bowl.

Realign into two 16-team conferences (Eastern & Western):

EAST:
Atlanta
Baltimore
Buffalo
Carolina
Cincy
Cleveland
Indy
Jags
Miami
NY Giants
NY Jets
Pats
Philly
Pittsburgh
Redskins
Tampa

WEST:
Arizona
Chicago
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Green Bay
Houston
KC
Minnesota
New Orleans
Oakland
SD
49ers
Seattle
St. Louis
Tennessee

15 games = vs 15 other teams in your conference

1 game = vs 1 team in the other conference (based on the 2 teams having the same standing in their respective conference from the previous season, i.e, 8th place in the east vs 8th place in the west)

Top 8 teams from each conference record-wise at the end of the season make playoffs

Playoffs: All 8 playoff teams get 1 week off after the last regular season game, then the matchups are: 1 seed vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5

Preseason games are important for the development of the rookies. Gives us 4 games to understand who has potential and who needs to be cut

Not broken, don't try to fix it. Adding more games just devalues the high stakes aspect of football. Every game would mean just a little bit less.