::cough cough:: Brett Ratliff ::cough cough::... According to Shutdown Corner (via the New York Times), this May, owners will vote to lengthen the regular season. Roger Goodell explains this is part of "increasing value" in the struggle to generate more revenue in the current economic times. I like the decision more for the fact that it gets rid of one preseason game, because four is way too many for a few reasons. First, the more preseason games you play, the more likely one of your starters is going to get hurt. Second, with four games, players like Brett Ratliff build up an organization and fan base's hope that he can be a legitimate NFL quarterback by playing four times against third string defenses. Slow down New York, he's still a number 3. Finally, it's just not exciting football, and nobody watches after the first quarter when starters are pulled. The decision to increase the regular season to 17 or 18 games, while it won't go into effect any earlier than 2011, is a whole new issue of its own. While yes, the NFL could probably make more money by increasing the amount of meaningful regular season games, the history of the game and the players should be taken into account. Many sports record books have been skewed by the increase in games played each season for years now, and the NFL would only be adding to that. Also, football is a very rough and physical sport, and playing up to 22 games in one season (18 regular season, wild card round, divisional round, conference championship, and Super Bowl) could ruin the careers of some of the sports greatest stars. In sport, however, you can never forget that most decisions are made from a business standpoint, so expect by 2011 that teams will be playing these extra one or two regular season contests.
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