Enhanced Pile of Sh*t

The NFL Owners made a presentation last Wednesday to extend the regular season to 18 games.

Let’s be perfectly clear about what we are talking about.  The owners are marketing it as an “enhanced season.”

We at UltimateNYG.com are marketing it as an enhanced pile of sh*t. 

This is just like the ideas floated around about expanding the number of teams that make the playoffs.  The simple theory is that more is better.  One of the reasons why I spend an inordinate amount of time blogging is because I love this game with a passion and I do not want to see the game sullied.  Expanding = enhancing = diluting.  It is my job to act as an advocate for what is right for us, the fans.  The NFL can try to speak for the fans if they like, but WE ARE THE FANS.  When we put this notion of an expanded season to a vote here on the blog, the result was that 75% of the people voted AGAINST the proposal.  If you go to sites like NFL.com where the uninformed drink the league Kool-Aid, you’ll get a majority who blindly accept the “more is better” rationale.  But for us, we have carefully discussed the reasons why such an idea is no 2 game boost to your NFL football season.  No one on this planet would love 2 more delectable and delightful morsels of football than all of us here on this blog, you and me, the ones talking football in June.  But the sad truth is that there is no free lunch and the players (whom we do NOT side with either) were the ones to spell out the reality.  See the link from Peter King inside the link above for more color from the players on why this idea just does not hold water.

There is exactly one argument I have heard that does work for why the season should be expanded.  It goes back to the season’s ticket holder (now PSL owner) who is already paying for 10 games of tickets: his logic is that if I am paying for 10, 9 regular and 1 preseason game is better than 8 regular and 2 preseason.  My answer to that one is that you are already getting f’d by them extorting those 2 preseason games, so maybe this proposal makes you feel better, but you’re not getting better football. 

The bottomline is that the NFL is already a game of attrition.  Injuries are already a big part of the game, so expanding the season is just going to make it that much worse.  As Ray Lewis notes, it is 2 games at the END of the season they are talking about, not 2 extra games.  So the incremental effect on health and deteriorating level of play will suffer greatly.  No place is that manifested more than the understanding that the roster would have to be expanded to have enough healthy bodies to dress.  This means that you are going to see more second AND third stringers in more games determining more of your team’s fate.  And by the time you are playing 22 games to win a title, it is no longer FOOTBALL.  It is called SURVIVOR.  Get off that island, it is not the sport we signed up for.