There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about expanding the NFL season. It makes sense that owners would want to add more games. After all, the NFL season has a fraction of the number of games of other major sports leagues. There are, however, problems inherent with this idea. We all want more football, but how do you do that without adversely affecting the players’ health or the product itself? The answer is adding bye weeks.
Adding Bye Weeks to Expand NFL Season
When thinking of issues with expanding the NFL season, first and foremost we should consider the health and safety of the players. Back in the day, the top stars in the NFL were feature backs like Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders. Now, most teams use the running back by committee model with Adrian Peterson the exception. However, he has faced injury problems and lost large chunks of time. Is the reason we see so many committees because it is already difficult for a feature back to survive an entire NFL season? Will young stars in the making like Ezekiel Elliott face the same fate? Another potential issue is dilution of the product. NFL ratings are down. While there may be many explanations for this, one reason that has been suggested is over saturation. We now have three weekly prime time games in addition to two regular national Sunday games. That is not even including the three 9:30 AM London games this season. Is five or six games a week too many or is it simply that the wrong teams are slated into these games?
More Money, Fewer (Injury) Problems
The league and owners want to make more money and let’s be honest, so do the players. So how do we balance this with player safety concerns? Don’t add games: add bye weeks. I propose an expansion of the NFL season to twenty weeks by adding three more bye weeks for each team. This would involve three more weeks of televised games and the revenue that comes with it, without having three more weeks of punishment on the players’ bodies. The only downside to adding bye weeks and not games is that there is no additional ticket income, but there is no way to increase this without putting the players at further risk of injury.
How it Would Work
First off, bump the NFL season up by two weeks. Everyone hates the preseason and we know that those games have awful ratings, so get rid of two of them. Every team gets one home and one away preseason game and that is it. Being an NFL football player is a full-time job, they should not need so many dress rehearsals. Teams can judge players in competitive situations by continual use of joint practices. Of course as a result, camp will need to start one or two weeks earlier as well.
There would be at least one regular season game in August. Then, throughout the fall, each team would essentially have a bye every month. If in a given year, there are 17 Sundays combined in the months of September, October, November, and December. Each team would play 13 games and have four bye weeks during this period. Finally, the regular season wraps up with two games in early January. This only pushes the playoffs and Super Bowl back by a week.
The Benefits
Adding bye weeks could potentially help players recover from nagging injuries and avoid stress and overuse injuries. You often hear of teams not rushing a player back to the field because they have a bye week coming up. In this scenario, that would be an option every month. It also allows teams to have byes before Thursday games. Doing so would make Thursday night football a much better product because teams would have time to rest and game plan. Taking these burdens away from that game would also allow the NFL to put better teams in that slot more often.
The idea comes with many positives. The fans would have three more weeks’ worth of NFL football to enjoy and the NFL would have three more weeks’ worth of TV revenue. The players would gain rest and recovery time, and as a result the league’s stars would be lost for the season less often. The NFL would be able to improve its Thursday Night Football product. And finally, the preseason would be shorter. For all these reasons, adding bye weeks is a no-brainer.
