Injuries to two of the NFL’s biggest stars on Sunday won’t stop the league from seeking another regular season game.
It just won’t. It’s too late. Back in 2010, Commissioner Roger Goodell express clearly By making a very simple argument that there are 20 games in total and want to expand to 18 games, Four (at the time) preseason games were terrible.. Why not change the counting games from 16 to 18 and the non-counting games from 4 to 2?
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The league made an unexpected concession at the time, unable to reconcile the health and safety epiphany imposed by Congress, and increased its overall annual workload by 12.5%. When the CBA gave the league the power to unilaterally cut preseason games in 2011, the idea was that the NFLPA would respond to the action by calling for more important games. (The league never exercised its prerogative.)
So the league waited until 2020 to convince the NFL Players Association to agree to adjust the number of games from 16 to 17 games. The CBA, which is based on an extra game, faces much stronger resistance than the NFLPA expected.
Since then, the desire to complete the expansion to 18 has grown stronger. It is widely believed that the league will inevitably push for another game, either through the next round of CBA negotiations or, if necessary, a lockout until the players say “uncle“.
Regardless, the league wants 18. It was determined to get 18. Any concerns about an increased risk of injury will be met with a range of carefully chosen statistics to support this view. Starting with an obvious statistic, Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons suffered ACL tears in the 14th game of the season — the first regular-season game the NFL has done since 1961.
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The league’s desire for 18 games will only go away if the NFLPA gives up enough other stuff to meet the league’s broader revenue goals, or if the NFLPA can convince players to accept a layoff that eliminates an entire season. The latter probably won’t happen; the former is a temporary solution that delays but doesn’t eliminate the obsession with 18 games.
The NFL is a football machine. Every player is part of this machine. Every player/part will be replaced at some point, either temporarily or permanently. And the machine will keep running. Replace injured or retired players or players who are simply not as good as the available replacements, and print more and more money all the time.
More. That’s what the NFL wants. That’s what the NFL got. Because it always is. This will be the case as long as the supply of minimally capable players exceeds the demand for roster spots.
