17-game season more likely

[I Touchdown There]

Richard Sherman on Twitter who sits on the EC says this is NFL propaganda and they’re nowhere close to agreeing to 17 games.

I saw. Good on him for fighting against it. I've never seen a player say they'd want this

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[lobachevsky]

16/4/1 being replaced by 17/2/2 could be interesting and might not be too hard to get passed by players(regular season games/preseason games/bye weeks).

The 17th game’s biggest hurdle is likely the odd home/road split which does offer an “unfair” variable. At a minimum, that would have to have a bit of a gate sharing component AND especially a tie-breaker priority change to reflect the huge advantage of having an extra home game.

Nope, here is the solution. Split gate at international games. Every team plays in 1 international game, with all bye weeks taking place before and after. International “month” is Basically November. Week 7, 8 teams get a bye, then play week 8 abroad(London, Berlin, Mexico City, Toronto, for example), then get a week 9 bye. This continues a quarter of the league at a time until week 12. Cities can rotate, but each city gets a month of games in a row. This is a plan that can literally benefit everyone.

That's a pretty slick plan. It's the only one I've seen that preserves almost all of the current nicely balanced scheduling mechanism.

The most predictable way to add a game is vs. a team from the opposite conference that finished in the same place in the division that your team last played 3 seasons ago. E.g., if the Ravens were adding a 17th game in 2020, the opponent for the 17th game would be the equivalent finisher in the NFC East.

The other caveat is that all the international venues should be in the same geographical region so that all travel-distance & time-zone-change impacts are roughly equivalent. In Europe, you add to London Wembley venues in France, Germany, and ... I dunno, Scotland? Ireland? Lots of choices there.

I didn't think a 17-game schedule could work before I read this. Nice job!

[organizedchaos21]

That's a pretty slick plan. It's the only one I've seen that preserves almost all of the current nicely balanced scheduling mechanism.

The most predictable way to add a game is vs. a team from the opposite conference that finished in the same place in the division that your team last played 3 seasons ago. E.g., if the Ravens were adding a 17th game in 2020, the opponent for the 17th game would be the equivalent finisher in the NFC East.

The other caveat is that all the international venues should be in the same geographical region so that all travel-distance & time-zone-change impacts are roughly equivalent. In Europe, you add to London Wembley venues in France, Germany, and ... I dunno, Scotland? Ireland? Lots of choices there.

I didn't think a 17-game schedule could work before I read this. Nice job!

Don't the Ravens already play the East in 2020? Do you want the North instead (played in 2017)?

[Ravens4Real]

How are they even going to handle a 17th game? Seems like a massive headache. It works out perfectly now with division 2x (6), two conferences AFC/NFC (8) and a rotating AFC/NFC conference same placement finishers (2).

Where would the 17th game even come from? Seems like they would have to have teams playing 3x’s a year in the regular season. I’m not sure how else they would go about figuring out what the 17th team would be.

[lobachevsky]

Don't the Ravens already play the East in 2020? Do you want the North instead (played in 2017)?

Yeah, you're right - originally I was writing it to describe how it would work this year, then switched to 2020 & didn't clean it up. Nice catch.

[lobachevsky]

How are they even going to handle a 17th game? Seems like a massive headache. It works out perfectly now with division 2x (6), two conferences AFC/NFC (8) and a rotating AFC/NFC conference same placement finishers (2).

Where would the 17th game even come from? Seems like they would have to have teams playing 3x’s a year in the regular season. I’m not sure how else they would go about figuring out what the 17th team would be.

Go back & look at jonboy79's post at #4 for one almost seamless way to arrange it.

[Ravens_21]

They should just expand playoffs to 14 teams. Cut 1-2 weeks of preseason and either make an extra week of playoff action or add a bye.

[Mista T]

The most predictable way to add a game is vs. a team from the opposite conference that finished in the same place in the division that your team last played 3 seasons ago. E.g., if the Ravens were adding a 17th game in 2020, the opponent for the 17th game would be the equivalent finisher in the NFC East.

Another approach which will likely be supported by some of the owners would be adding a 5th inter-conference game, between regional or historic rivals: Ravens-Redskins, Rams-Chargers, Jets-Giants, Texans-Cowboys, Dolphins-Bucs, Jaguars-Falcons (think of the annual Florida-Georgia college game played in Jax), and Eagles-Steelers.

This approach was favored by the Steelers and some other teams related to the NFL realignment of 2002. The "Rooney Plan", similar to my first sentence, was shot down by Tagliabue in favor of today's approach.

Precedence for inter-conference rivalry was the annual Baltimore Colts game vs. DC Redskins, played 1953-1973. It used to be a big highlight for Colts fans, whose team dominated the series.

I don't know how to fill in for teams with no apparent geographic rival - I'm sure NFL's computers could do that.

[mikezpen]

No.Players are run-down, and there's increased risk of serious injury. Leave it where it is.

[lobachevsky]

Another approach which will likely be supported by some of the owners would be adding a 5th inter-conference game, between regional or historic rivals... I don't know how to fill in for teams with no apparent geographic rival - I'm sure NFL's computers could do that.

And how do you handle seasons when those rivals' divisions are already scheduled to play one another? Find another (inter-conference) rivalry to schedule? Good luck. E.g., for the Ravens, logical interconference rivals would be DC Untied , Giants, Igls, Pack (but the last 3 are really remnants of the old Colts rivalries rather than Crow-specific). I guess you schedule the Pack when the AFCN is playing the NFCE?

Ehhh. Seems awfully clumsy to me compared with the other idea.

[SpaceCityRaven]

18 games, 2 preseason and 2 bye's is coming. It's only a matter of time and the right cut of money.

[Corey]

They should then raise minimum salary and more guarantees??

They also need to increase roster size.