Every year when the NFL Preseason begins I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, the preseason signals that we are that much closer to the NFL season beginning for real. It is our first opportunity to see the professional athletes of the greatest sports league in the known universe take the field. After seven long football-less months, the action returns to the gridiron.
On the other hand, the games themselves aren’t very exciting (compared to an actual football game where the scores count for something, that is. Compared to, say, baseball, the NFL preseason games are fairly exciting.) The starters will play for only a few minutes. And we’ll all collectively hold our breath while they’re in, hoping against all hope that our star quarterback or up and coming receiver doesn’t suffer a season ending injuring in their few short moments playing in a meaningless game.
Most of the preseason games will be used by the coaches to evaluate their on the bubble players. Which makes the preseason something akin to watching the UFL. Yes, it is the game we love, but it isn’t the same when being played by lesser athletes for lower stakes.
The proposal to stretch the regular season to 18 games by eliminating two of the preseason games (or more accurately, converting them to regular season games) is gaining traction among NFL owners and fans. The players, not so much.
With no labor agreement for next year and the very real possibility of a strike / lockout situation, it seems as good a time as any to push the change. If the players are going to walk away from this whole contract fiasco with an even bigger share of the revenues, the owners are going to compensate by gouging us, the fans, for even more money on tickets, hotdogs, jerseys, etc. We may as well get something out of it, and an extra two games a year would be about the best we could hope for.
