The NFL made a presentation on Wednesday to change the schedule around. It is being called an enhanced schedule. What it would do is take away two preseason games and turn them into two regular season games. This would mean that teams play 18 games in a regular season instead of 16.
The driving force behind this proposal is obviously money. More regular season games means more profit for the NFL, but here are a few reasons why the money isn't worth it.
The first reason is that the importance of each game is a lot less. The beauty of the NFL is that there are not that many games, so each game is extremely crucial and people are much more likely to watch an NFL game than, say, an MLB game.
There is also much more intensity in each game. Players in the NFL always give everything they have in football because each win is crucial. Baseball players couldn't really care less if they lose a regular season game. Why should they? There are 162 games to play in a season, so one game doesn't really make a difference. One game in 162 comes out to roughly .6%. One loss isn't big at all because that game isn't even 1% of the regular season.
If you divide one game by the 16 games in the NFL regular season, you get 6.25%. That means a single NFL game is ten times more important than an MLB regular season game. One NFL game has a huge impact on an NFL team. If you use the enhanced schedule, you are taking away a little bit of the excitement of the game. Each game means a little bit less.
Another reason I don't support the enhanced schedule is that players and coaches need the preseason. Even though it may not be as entertaining to the fan, the preseason is how coaches find out how their potential players perform in game situations. Two games isn't always enough to show the coaches. If you give the coaches enough time to put together the best possible team they can, then you are making the regular season more exciting because the best players will always be out there.
My last reason, and probably the most important reason, is player health. It is hard enough as it is for players to stay healthy with our current schedule. If you make them play even more and subject their bodies to the toil of an NFL game even more, then you are not helping their health at all. If a team makes it to the Super Bowl, then that means that teams players have to play 21 games in a season.
If you add up the games from season to season, it only gets worse and worse. So many former NFL players have numerous health issues after they played in the NFL because of the beatings they took day in and day out. Imagine if you added two more games to each season for a player that played 10 seasons. That is 20 more games of abuse that their body has to take. Money is not worth the lives of the athletes we hold so dear.
I understand that the NFL is a business, but they are already hugely successful. Why bother trying to be even better when they are risking the lives of the very people that make them so successful. The cons hugely outweigh the pros in this situation, so let us hope that this proposal isn't passed.
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