NFL needs to review pre-season schedule
It’s time to fix the pre-season.
Seriously, it’s time to do something about the NFL pre-season.
Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about it in the past. The owners proposed it to the players during negotiations that led to the 2011 labour deal. Now it’s time — it’s way past time, actually — to do it. Shorten the pre-season.
When so many coaches decide that so many starting quarterbacks don’t need to take even a single snap during Week 2 of the preseason, it’s difficult to argue that a four-game pre-season is necessary to prepare a team for the regular season. Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, Teddy Bridgewater and Kirk Cousins didn’t see the field at all during games this past weekend.
“I don’t remember seeing this many healthy QB scratches for the second pre-season game,” Charley Casserly, the former general manager of the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans, wrote on social media.
Some argue that a shorter preseason would hinder player development, particularly with young quarterbacks, and would hurt those players vying for the final few roster spots.
But the NFL could establish a developmental league if it wishes. Young quarterbacks would benefit more from that than from a few pre-season games. Joint practices and scrimmages could be added during the summer for player evaluation.
Goodell acknowledged the lack of quality in pre-season games when the league proposed an 18-game regular season and a two-game preseason during the last set of labour negotiations. The NFL Players Association was vehemently against a longer regular season on player safety grounds, and the owners dropped the proposal.
The owners are unlikely to reduce the pre-season and lose those revenues without an accompanying revenue-boosting measure.
The proposal for an 18-game regular season and a two-game pre-season perhaps could be revisited in the future. Sean Gilbert, in his failed campaign to replace DeMaurice Smith as executive director of the NFLPA, argued that the players should agree to an 18game season in exchange for other concessions by the owners. Would the union agree to an 18-game season if given the neutral arbitration that it wants for players’ appeals of league-imposed discipline under the personal conduct policy and integrity-of-the-game rules? But it needn’t even come to that. The owners in recent years have considered a proposal to expand the NFL playoff field from 12 to 14 teams. There would be seven playoff teams in each conference instead of the current six. One team in each conference would receive a first-round post-season bye rather than the current two.
Whatever deal must be struck, the NFL shouldn’t wait any longer to do something about the preseason.
LENGTH OF BAN QUERIED
Many observers have expressed surprise and dismay about the NFL’s decision to suspend New York Giants place kicker Josh Brown for only one game under its personal conduct policy.
There were reports last week that Brown’s ex-wife told police that he had been violent toward her on more than 20 occasions.
The NFL said that Brown’s former wife declined to speak to league investigators and authorities refused to provide information.