The owners have long hoped they could convert a couple preseason games into regular season games, or otherwise stretch the regular season to 18 games. They are a lucrative proposition, after all.
But what about the players? What incentive have they ever had to risk themselves for another games when the sport is already so taxing as it is. Well, I suppose the rough answer to that is that, in the collective bargaining process, perhaps they could extract financial incentives for the tradeoff. A big increase in the salary cap is an obvious one, but what about things like adjustments to free agency? To salary guarantees or the franchise tag or the fifth year option? To post-playing pension and health insurance? That all has to be on the table.
But what about another way to protect the players and still get 18 games?
Well, per the Wall Street Journal, such an idea has been formally proposed by the league:
Imagine an 18-game NFL regular season… where the players can only play in 16 of the games. (In other words: The Patriots would have to pick two games a year when Tom Brady has to sit.)
Inside the billion-dollar issue from the NFL's labor talks: https://t.co/9Jia0nn1C1
— Andrew Beaton (@andrewlbeaton) July 12, 2019
The mind immediately reels at the possible implications of teams having to figure out which healthy players to sit down for which games, and how to adjust on the fly as players get injured. You also immediately think of the fantasy football and gambling implications (hey, we’re all fans here), as well as how it could impact player travel and local fans getting to see certain players.
Keep in mind, although this is a very interesting attempt at a compromise, it is still likely to be opposed aggressively by the players:
Expanding the NFL schedule to 18 games could be worth $2.5 billion—which the players would share in. So why do they oppose it? Here's their calculation: https://t.co/9Jia0nED0B pic.twitter.com/NMFv8rd4uI
— Andrew Beaton (@andrewlbeaton) July 12, 2019
As more trickles out about this possibility, we’ll have more on the CBA talks. The current CBA runs through the next two seasons, but negotiations are already underway.