The NFL has been in talks about expanding once again to add an extra regular season game. Joe Burrow recently released his ideal 18 game schedule which seemed to excite a lot of people and is agreed to be a good compromise.

The Proposal

To catch up the ones who have not heard about this news here is what he said on “Pardon My Take”. He believes that there would be two definite bye weeks. One randomly spread out like there is now and one around week 13 which would mock an “all-star” break which would include skills competitions and a 7-on-7 game. There would still be 2 weeks in between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. This way if the start of the season is pushed back one more week the Super Bowl will be lined up with the day before President’s Day in which many people have off work and school the next day.

Pros

The double bye week works out well for everyone. The season gets expanded, players get a rest, and some players get to have fun at the all-star competition. Being mid-season, the game may also get some more attention. By February right before the Super bowl there are a lot of NFL fans that are checked-out for the season. 30 fanbases are no longer watching their favorite team causing them to be a lot less engaged. If the Pro-Bowl is in the middle of the season instead, you may have more interested fans.

The obvious advantage to this is more games to the fans, extra money earned for the owners, and an extra paycheck for players. The opinion on this part is split between players. Some players like that they will be paid a little extra. Others feel a 17-game season is already taxing enough on their bodies.

The strong point of emphasis on the Super Bowl being the day before President’s day is important. Lots of people, usually the less enthusiastic football fans, will call it a night early because they have to wake up early the next morning.

Cons

What I personally dislike the most about this the most is the existing NFL records. For example, the current single-season passing yards record is held by Peyton Manning with 5,477 in 2013. This was in 16 games averaging 342 yards per game. While no one has broken that record, in the 17-game season, a QB would only need to average 322 yards per game instead. In an 18-game season, a QB would only need 304 yards per game to break that record. Point being, it is a lot easier to break these records which makes it feel like the NFL is synthetically changing the record books.

Another disadvantage is players’ safety and health. This was the main complaint that is holding back the 18-game season currently. If football wasn’t so taxing on the players’ bodies they would be playing 162-game seasons like the MLB. Having a lot of games also takes away a lot of the hype behind every week’s game. This schedule works for other leagues, but nothing beats the tradition of weekly Sunday football.

While Burrow tried to fix the Pro-Bowl game, I do not think this solution and may make it worse. Asking football players to play a meaningless game in the middle of the season is the biggest joke ever. They barely do anything physically taxing when its followed by months of rest. On top of that, owners and coaches don’t want their players getting hurt in this game either. I think getting participation in this game would be difficult.

Should They Make It Happen?

As much as I would love to watch more football I think changes like this just mess with the traditions of professional football. I get the NFL and its owners trying to make more money, but they already make plenty of revenue. Making these changes may get a lot of hype at first but if it snowballs, the NFL will lose a lot of fans who just like it the way that it is now.