What should an 18-game season look like?

[justinskins]

NFL owners are expected to approve a plan to move to an 18-game regular season in 2012. Approving the plan would not guarantee an 18-game season: any change would have to be included in a new collective bargaining agreement with players before becoming official. Owners may not be willing to swallow the demands players will make in return for agreeing to a longer season with greater opportunity for injury. However, my sense from recent reporting is that strong momentum is building toward an 18-game season.

I'm creating this thread to separate debate about whether an 18-game schedule is desirable from what may be even more interesting questions about how such change should be effected. What do you think a longer season should look like? More specifically, how do you think the league should answer the following questions:

1) How should the 18 games be scheduled?

As a reminder, each NFL team has a schedule composed of 4 blocks:
a) 6 division games (one home & one away against each division opponent)
b) 4 conference games--played against each team in another division in the conference (rotates among the other 3 divisions)
c) 4 interconference games--played against each team in a division from the other conference (rotates among the 4 divisions in the other conference)
d) 2 non-common games--played against the two conference opponents with the same division ranking from the previous year, excluding the division played in (b).

The most obvious step would be to eliminate the non-common games. The downside would be the loss of the balancing effect achieved by the scheduling system today: because of the non-common games, division winners currently face a slightly stronger schedule than division losers. However, it would allow several possible scenarios:
i) Eliminate the non-common games and add another four conference games against yet another in-conference division. That way, a team would play 8 other conference teams every year. This would strengthen the sense of in-conference competition. In particular, it would make the wild-card race more interesting, as teams would likely have played wild-card rivals earlier in the season, or face them during the wild-card race.
ii) Eliminate the non-common games and replace them with four interconference games. Each team would then have played every team in the other conference over any two-year period. This would increase the scheduling cohesion in the league as a whole, while weakening the importance of conference affiliation in scheduling.
iii) Eliminate one non-common game and schedule an additional game against each division opponent. Unfortunately, this would cause the number of home & away games to be unbalanced against each division opponent. On the other hand, division competition would become even more important One non-common game would remain--and would have to be scheduled in a somewhat less elegant way than currently.

Are other changes to the schedule possible, apart from replacing one or both non-common games?

2) When should the season start/end?

The season could begin before labor day, or it could end later. With the Super Bowl typically being played in February as it is, I'm not sure the season can afford to end any later. Also, the league would have to ask if one bye week is enough for an 18-game season.

3) How should roster rules change?

Currently, 80 players can participate in a team's training camp. During the regular season, teams are allowed 53 players on the roster, plus 8 on the practice squad. They can dress 45 players as active for each game, and an inactive third "emergency" quarterback may enter the game after the third quarter, or after two quarterbacks on the active roster have left the game.

Most likely, the 53-player limit will have to be raised; the active roster limit may be raised as well. If you think those limits should be raised, then by how much? If the active roster limit is significantly raised, should the emergency quarterback rule stand? Should rules for the injured reserve be changed? Instead of being season-ending, perhaps IR could last for only a fixed number of weeks (eight, for example). Should more players be allowed in training camp?

Beyond these suggestions, some have proposed more exotic changes to the roster rules. One such proposal is that each individual player only be allowed to dress for 16 regular season games. (There could be an exemption for the starting quarterback.) Any other ideas along those lines?

4) Should the playoff system and scheduling remain the same?

At first glance, there seems to be little reason to change the playoff schedule. However, teams without a playoff bye will be further disadvantaged in the division round, facing a longer, more grueling regular season against a well-rested opponent. Perhaps the bye week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl should be moved to the first week of the playoffs. Or given the increased length of the regular season, perhaps the Super Bowl bye week should be eliminated entirely.

[Keino]

It shouldn't.

[smoak]

An 18 game schedule should spread 16 games over the course of 17 week. Not to pile on to a really good thread/post, but I am against it.

[Keino]

Yea Justin, I am sorry to piss on your well thought out post and thread, but I also am completely opposed to the idea and think that the owners are messing with an already good thing.

[CNYSkinFan]

They will be lucky to get in 16 games before the meteor hits

[nicefellow31]

That's a good post but I agree with Keino. The NFL schedule is perfect the way it is now with 32 teams playing 16 games. The schedule is easy to do now. But greed destroys everything.

[WarEagle]

The cumulative effect of 2 more games per season, over time, will shorten careers. The Age of the Dynasty will probably end, as well.

[Patrick]

IMO - the only thing the owners should vote on changing is having the Superbowl played on Saturday instead of Sunday.

[CNYSkinFan]

I actually like the idea of 18 games, and bonus that the 2 games are coming out of pre-season. I do hope they counter this with expanding the rosters and making everyone active on gameday. If that happens it will be a decent change for the future of football. Of course some single season records will fall, but more meaningful games is a good thing IMO

[Skinz4lyfe]

Originally Posted by CNYSkinFan

I actually like the idea of 18 games, and bonus that the 2 games are coming out of pre-season. I do hope they counter this with expanding the rosters and making everyone active on gameday. If that happens it will be a decent change for the future of football. Of course some single season records will fall, but more meaningful games is a good thing IMO

I feel the same way. Expanding the roster size is the key. The NFL has to allow more players to play to limit the wear and tear on the player's bodies.

The only thing I would add to your schedule would be 1 "rivalry" game per year outside of the division based on demographic area (i.e. Redskins/Ravens, Giants/Jets, Chargers/Niners/Raiders, Eagles/Steelers, etc). That would be hard to pull off with playing each division every 4 yrs but I think there's a way it could be done.

[Keino]

Expansion of the schedule has typically coincided with expansion of the league. When the NFL had 12 game seasons, they only had 12 teams (6 in the east and 6 in the west). In 1961 the 14 game season was adopted, which coincided with the addition of 2 more teams (The Dallas Cowpatties and the Vikings) for a total of 14 teams.

The 16 game schedule was adopted in 1978. This is post NFL-AFL merger plus the addition of the Bucs, Saints, Falcons Bengals and Seahawks, thus expanding from 14 to 28 teams. The argument could be made that the expansion to 32 teams requires additional games, but I wouldn't buy that argument. The 16 games /32 teams /8 divisions/ 2 Conferences dynamic works perfectly.

With that in mind, and in the spirit of the thread, I would support an 18 game schedule that coincided with expansion of the league from 32 to 36 teams. I would then re-align the 2 Conferences to have three (3) six team divisions.

Here's how the league would look under my proposal:

Assumption-
Expansion teams are awarded to these Cities:

Los Angeles
Las Vegas
Oklahoma City
Salt Lake City

NFC East:

Washington
New York Giants
Philly
Dallas
Carolina
Atlanta

NFC Central:

Green Bay
Minnesota
Detroit
Chicago
Tampa Bay
New Orleans

NFC West:

Arizona
St. Louis
Seattle
San Fran
Los Angeles
Oklahoma City

AFC East:

New England
New York Jets
Miami
Buffalo
Baltimore
Jacksonville

AFC Central:

Indianapolis
Pittsburgh
Cleveland
Cincinnati
Tennessee
Houston

AFC West:

San Diego
Denver
Oakland
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Salt Lake City

The thinking behind my set-up is to preserve as many traditional rivalries as possible while keeping some semblance of geographical order. Obviously that geographical order could change based upon the expansion teams. I would NOT Change the number of playoff teams. Keeping it at 12 maintains the importance of the Regular Season games (and with the expansion of teams, heightens it) More on that later.

Roster Rules:

I would expand the rosters to 60 on the active roster plus a 10-man taxi/development/practice squad. All 60 players would be eligible to dress on Sundays. I would keep the rules in place that allow other teams to sign practice squad players provided that they sign that player to the active roster. I would add the caveat that if the player in question is subsequently released during the same season, then the rights to that player immediately revert back to the original team. They would have 24 hours to exercise this right and create the necessary room on their practice squad or active roster.

Schedule:

I would modify the rotational schedule. Order of finish would continue to only impact 2 games. Under this proposal, every team would play its divisional rivals twice. This would determine 10 of the 18 games. Next, every team, on a rotational basis, 3 teams in each of the two other divisions. This would account for 6 more games. Finally, the last 2 games would against 2 teams from the opposing conference that finished in the same place in the standings the previous season. By way of example, let's assume all the teams finish in the order listed above. The Redskins 18 game schedule would be:

Dallas (x2)
Philly (x2)
New York(x2)
Carolina(x2)
Atlanta(x2)
Green Bay
Detroit
Tampa Bay
St. Louis
San Fran
Oklahoma City
New England
Indy

This places a greater importance on the Conference and Divisional games, insures that every team plays the same number of Conference games all while insuring greater objectivity for playoff tie-breakers. Under the above example, in the following season, the Skins would play the 6 conference teams they didn't play in the above hypothetical (MIN, CHI, NO, AZ, SEA & LA). I would also add 2 bye weeks. Under this scenario, I would cut 2 pre-season games, but would allow teams an additional 2-3 weeks of training camp.

Playoffs:

I would not change the format or how many teams qualify. 6 teams from each conference, consisting of 3 division winners and the 3 best wildcards would make the playoffs. The 2 top teams are rewarded with a playoff bye and play the lowest seeded winners as is currently the practice. The highest seeded team will play at home.

[justinskins]

Great post Keino! This is the sort of thing I wanted to see when I made the thread.

[skinfanjon]

That's a great proposal keino, the only the only thing that's concerning to me is what happens if the order of finish dictates we play a team we are already scheduled to play based on the intra-conference ration? Just play them twice? That means 12 games come from playing the same team twice...I don't like that.

[Keino]

Originally Posted by skinfanjon

That's a great proposal keino, the only the only thing that's concerning to me is what happens if the order of finish dictates we play a team we are already scheduled to play based on the intra-conference ration? Just play them twice? That means 12 games come from playing the same team twice...I don't like that.

Not at all. The order of finish under my proposal would only determine the 2 out of conference games. There is no way, under my proposal that team would play more than one inter-conference out of division opponent more than once unless those teams met in the playoffs.

[Chief Seeway]

I like Keino's idea although adding that amount of additional players would thin out the talent pool imo. Plus what happens at the draft?

The only change I'd offer is take one of the opposing conference games and make it either a conference or divisional standings game. 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th, etc. This would have to fall on the same week league wide... maybe after a league wide bye week? I think the standings game would help separate the playoff teams from the pack.