NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell appears to have come up with a good sell to push the league to 18 regular season games.
The man who embraced Black Lives Matter and set the stage for introducing woke into the league would like to reduce the preseason to just two games and expand the regular season to 18 games. The preseason was originally four games, with a 16-game regular season. In March 2021, the NFL went to three preseason games and a 17-game regular season — there’s more money in a regular season game.
Goodell is selling the idea by noting that the calendar would be extended by a week, resulting in the Super Bowl falling on President’s Day. In effect, for many, it would be a 3-day weekend that gives them Monday off.
“I think we’re good at 17 [games] now,” Goodell said on the Pat McAfee Show. “But, listen, we’re looking at how we continue. I’m not a fan of the preseason. The reality is, I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular-season game any day. That’s just picking quality.”
“I think we’re good at seventeen games right now but we’re always looking at how we continue..
I’m not a fan of the preseason and I’d replace a preseason game with a regular season game any day” ~ @nflcommish #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/Tv8xdjkSXJ
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) April 26, 2024
“If we get to 18 and 2, that’s not an unreasonable thing,” he added. “The other thing it does, (Super Bowl Sunday) ends up on Presidents’ Day weekend, which is a three-day weekend, which makes it Sunday night and then you have Monday off.”
For some.
NFL on ESPN appears to be all in, posting: “Imagine having the day after the Super Bowl off.”
Roger Goodell on the possibility of an 18-game NFL season that places the Super Bowl on Presidents’ Day weekend
Imagine having the day after the Super Bowl off
( @PatMcAfeeShow) pic.twitter.com/U3rW4dE7Li
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) April 26, 2024
New England Patriots center David Andrews, who won two Super Bowls with the team, was not so quick to embrace the idea.
Taking to Instagram, Andrews reminded Goodell that he’s not out there competing for a roster spot on a team.
“With all due respect, you don’t need it cause you’re not suiting up and there’s a lot of veterans who don’t,” the player wrote on his Instagram Stories. “But there’s a lot of young players and undrafted guys who need it to develop and prove they deserve a chance to play. But hell, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
The NFL Players Association, the labor union representing players, barely passed moving to a 17-game season on 2021, approving by just 51 percent.
“They’re really just saying 17 so they can get to 18 [games],” former player Richard Sherman said at the time. “So that’s two more opportunities for players to risk their bodies [and] to put their bodies on the line.”
Surprisingly, fans get it. Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from the social media platform X:
Stop watering down the game, it is not as good as the Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor, Dan Marino days. It is a soft game already Players need recovery days.
— Dee Brown (@ozonepark7) April 27, 2024
The other sports want less games, because the seasons are too long. So why does this league continue to think more regular season games is better. There will just be preseason-style games in January instead of August.
— MMcLaugh (@McLaughlinMitch) April 26, 2024
Veterans don’t play entire games at regular speed so exchanging one for the other isn’t equal. 16 was good, but he’s leading the NFL into the same issue the other leagues have, too many regular season games diminishes the value of individual games & players can’t give full effort
— David Pooley (@Poolio1960) April 26, 2024
Season is too taxing on their bodies. It’s bad enough that many players have limited years on careers. Goodell needs to back off.
— Buck Thenar (@BThenar) April 28, 2024
18 games sounds like a cash grab, players gonna be wrecked. Keep it at 16.
— Victoria Kay (@babevickycruz) April 28, 2024
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Tom Tillison
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://americanwirenews.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.