Proposed Solution to the 18 game season

Make a rule that a player can only be on the 45 man game day roster for 16 games during the regular season. So 2 of the games, for every position, you will have to have another player play instead. One advantage of this, is the backup QB will get to play 2 games out of the year, and teams with great depth will be able to showcase their talent. The drawback is how many players will you need on a roster to support those extra 2 games? Also, presumably kicker/punter can be expected to play 18 games, as they often kick in preseason anyway, I believe.

increase the roster to 56 players and 12 practice squad players

Originally posted by fryet:
Make a rule that a player can only be on the 45 man game day roster for 16 games during the regular season. So 2 of the games, for every position, you will have to have another player play instead. One advantage of this, is the backup QB will get to play 2 games out of the year, and teams with great depth will be able to showcase their talent. The drawback is how many players will you need on a roster to support those extra 2 games? Also, presumably kicker/punter can be expected to play 18 games, as they often kick in preseason anyway, I believe.

I am not a fan of this. Games are expensive and you're asking people to spend full price to see what amounts to a regular season exhibition game.

I'm actually in favor of just keeping the 16 game schedule. If they do go to 18 games then I hope they are normal games. The whole point of taking two preseason games and making them regular season games is to increase the number of games than fans actually want to watch.

keep it a 16 game season.

problem solved.

Originally posted by fryet:
Make a rule that a player can only be on the 45 man game day roster for 16 games during the regular season. So 2 of the games, for every position, you will have to have another player play instead. One advantage of this, is the backup QB will get to play 2 games out of the year, and teams with great depth will be able to showcase their talent. The drawback is how many players will you need on a roster to support those extra 2 games? Also, presumably kicker/punter can be expected to play 18 games, as they often kick in preseason anyway, I believe.

I think there are plenty of problems with this. Simply putting in an extra bye week sounds like a far better idea. In fact, perhaps every team should have their bye weeks during the same weeks (say, weeks 7 and 14 of a 20 week schedule). The problem with the stated proposal are the following:

-You are penalizing teams that are heavily dependent on 1 player i.e. the 2 participants of Super Bowl 44. While some might say that this is an asset of that plan (rewarding teams with depth), I would disagree and say that if one player is a big enough superstar, you shouldn't have to rely on depth. Teams with good depth will wind up being in an advantageous enough situatuon since there are inevitably plenty of injuries anyways.

-How are coaches to prepare for when to bench their key players? They'd be in a no-win situation. Do you bench them randomly throughout the year and then risk the fact that maybe they get injured later on anyways and subsequently would have missed those 2 games anyways? So you essentially bench them for no reason. If you wait until the end of the year to bench them, then you are holding back a team during the key time of fighting for playoff positioning/entry.

-Teams would be given a blind advantage that they don't deserve, if say, they get to play New England when Belichick decides to not dress Brady so maybe they got an undeserving leg-up on their division rival who has to play New England with TB.

-Like thefunkychicken stated, it would suck for the fans to pay to go see a game where a team has to bench key players because the league forces them to. That already happens plenty enough as it is with games players naturally miss because of injuries. No need to exacerbate it.

-Bad teams would likely win far more games than they should because most teams would want to not dress their stars for that game. For example, Carolina might go the whole season without facing a team's starting qb.

Besides, if players play in 18 games over 20 weeks, you could logically make the argument that that is easier on the body than playing 16 games over 17 weeks.

Originally posted by HessianDud:
keep it a 16 game season.

problem solved.

Originally posted by TheGoldenState:

Originally posted by HessianDud:
keep it a 16 game season.

problem solved.

Another interesting solution I heard was to go to a 17 game season, with each team playing one international game per year.

That international game could be in London, Canada, Mexico or wherever.

It would solve a few issues at once.

It's a perfect compromise between 16 and 18 games.

It would bring enough games to London to keep them from needing their own team.

And it would be the end of teams losing a home game because they have to play abroad.

And it would give all teams an equal chance to gain international appeal.

All teams would either end the season as winners or losers. No more .500 teams.


Honestly, I'd much rather just keep it simple at stick with 16 games. But I do think that this 16 domestic plus 1 international game is a pretty innovative way to make a deal that both sides might go for.

Originally posted by TheFunkyChicken:
Another interesting solution I heard was to go to a 17 game season, with each team playing one international game per year.

That international game could be in London, Canada, Mexico or wherever.

It would solve a few issues at once.

It's a perfect compromise between 16 and 18 games.

It would bring enough games to London to keep them from needing their own team.

And it would be the end of teams losing a home game because they have to play abroad.

And it would give all teams an equal chance to gain international appeal.

All teams would either end the season as winners or losers. No more .500 teams.


Honestly, I'd much rather just keep it simple at stick with 16 games. But I do think that this 16 domestic plus 1 international game is a pretty innovative way to make a deal that both sides might go for.

Thatd be sick.

I'm for an 18 game season with just 2 exhibition games. They play 20 games now, 16 regular, 4 preseason. Back in the day, it took longer to get ready for the season. Now with OTA's etc and tons of money on the line, the players come in in much better shape. The two preseason games would be for tune-up and younger player evaluation. Then on to meaningful games.

Originally posted by ishkabibel:
I'm for an 18 game season with just 2 exhibition games. They play 20 games now, 16 regular, 4 preseason. Back in the day, it took longer to get ready for the season. Now with OTA's etc and tons of money on the line, the players come in in much better shape. The two preseason games would be for tune-up and younger player evaluation. Then on to meaningful games.

But in order to get the 2 extra regular season games the owners will have to give up some of the off season activities. So players would not have as many OTAs, mini camps, etc.

Originally posted by TheFunkyChicken:

Originally posted by ishkabibel:
I'm for an 18 game season with just 2 exhibition games. They play 20 games now, 16 regular, 4 preseason. Back in the day, it took longer to get ready for the season. Now with OTA's etc and tons of money on the line, the players come in in much better shape. The two preseason games would be for tune-up and younger player evaluation. Then on to meaningful games.

But in order to get the 2 extra regular season games the owners will have to give up some of the off season activities. So players would not have as many OTAs, mini camps, etc.

Why? I would simply substitute 2 preseason games for 2 regular games.

Originally posted by ishkabibel:

Originally posted by TheFunkyChicken:

Originally posted by ishkabibel:
I'm for an 18 game season with just 2 exhibition games. They play 20 games now, 16 regular, 4 preseason. Back in the day, it took longer to get ready for the season. Now with OTA's etc and tons of money on the line, the players come in in much better shape. The two preseason games would be for tune-up and younger player evaluation. Then on to meaningful games.

But in order to get the 2 extra regular season games the owners will have to give up some of the off season activities. So players would not have as many OTAs, mini camps, etc.

Why? I would simply substitute 2 preseason games for 2 regular games.

Everything I've read or seen on TV said that in order to get two more regular season games the owners would have to give the players a longer off season. I don't think the union will go for the 18 game season unless they can get more time off during the summer.

you must have been that guy that called knbr a couple days ago with this same idea and Rod Brooks shot it down.

17 game season