NFL, Goodell May Expand Regular Season to 18 Games

Love the NFL's opening weekend? Let's move it up!

Now, this is a good idea.

From Ruben James at examiner.com:

Roger Goodell said that he was looking forward to the owners meeting in May in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. He was hopeful for a proposal for a expansion of the regular season to 17 or 18 games and dropping two preseason games. Still keeping the 20 game format intact, although it will probably not happen until 2011 or so.

First of all, I have to take a moment to say how awesome it is that the guy who wrote this is named Ruben James. Because for the rest of the day, I'm going to have the old Kenny Rogers song "Rueben James" in my head:

Rueben Jaaaaaames,
You still walk the fertile fields of my mind.
Faded shirt, weathered brow,
Calloused hands upon the plow,
I loved you then and I love you now,
Rueben James

Anybody? Nobody? Well, whatever. It's going to be in my head all day, and that's fine by me if I'm the only one.

Anyway, there are few things dumber on the sports calendar every year than NFL preseason games. People pay good money for parking and tickets, and they get to see Peyton Manning and Tom Brady play a couple of series before they get taken out so they don't get hurt. Players do get hurt in preseason games, and then there's all this wailing and gnashing of teeth about how stupid it is that players put themselves at risk in preseason games.

Now, if you took two of the four preseason games these teams play and turned them into regular-season games, then you've got something. You've got zillions more in TV money, because these would turn into games people actually watch on TV. You'd sell more ads for them. You'd expand the size of the most anticipated regular season in all of sports by 12.5 percent, giving a football-crazed nation more real football to go crazy for. You could still basically use those two games to work out some roster issues if you wanted to, because no matter what happens in them you'd still have the same 16 games in which to recover that you have now.

I can't imagine the owners not wanting this. Can they sell it to their TV partners, who'd have to pony up more in a poor economy? Can they sell it to the players, who will undoubtedly want more money if they're playing more real games? Can they do all of this with big labor problems looming? These are the key questions, and I don't imagine we have the answers yet.

But as an idea, it's a great one.