GO SHORT
Sabre-rattling about the potential for a work stoppage in 2021 is underway as the NFL returns to the perennial conversation about shortening the pre-season, Mark Maske writes.
It’s not a new thing that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is talking about the possibility of shortening the pre-season.
But it is interesting that the topic has come up again publicly. And, with a new set of labour negotiations between the league and the NFL Players Association almost at hand and with the sabre-rattling about the potential for a work stoppage in 2021 already underway, the owners presumably will seek something in exchange for reducing the pre-season, whether that means a longer regular season or an expanded post-season.
The idea came up in the negotiations that led to the 2011 labour deal between the league and union following a lockout. The owners proposed cutting the pre-season from four to two games per team and increasing the regular season from 16 to 18 games. The union objected vehemently on player-safety grounds. The league dropped the proposal and said that it would not change the length of the season in the future without the players’ consent.
Now, Goodell is once again saying the quality of pre-season games is not up to the NFL’s standards.
“When I go around to fans, that’s maybe the No. 1 thing I hear,” Goodell said at a recent fan forum for Giants season-ticket holders, according to Newsday. “The NFL should do things to the highest possible standards. Pre-season games are not that.”
A pre-season of two to three games would be sufficient, he said.
“There’s value to them, building a team, evaluating players,” Goodell said. “But there are other ways of doing that. I think we could do it in three (pre-season games). Almost every coach has agreed we could get done what we need to in three games.”
The question, of course, is what the owners would want in return for a pre-season of two to three games. The idea in the past was to keep the total number of games at 20, meaning either two pre-season games and 18 regular season games or three pre-season games and 17 regular season games. The 17-game season creates the possibility of each team playing one neutralsite game per season, possibly overseas.
An owners’ proposal for an 18game season would likely remain a non-starter with the union, and a 17-game season probably isn’t any more palatable to the players. It remains to be seen if it will come up again.
The owners at one point seemed prepared to substitute an expanded playoff field for a longer regular season as the prospective trade-off for a reduced pre-season. Either one presumably would serve to boost revenue, particularly from the sport’s network television deals.
The expanded-playoffs proposal would have seven teams in each conference, instead of the current six, qualifying annually for the post-season. There would be one opening-round post-season bye per conference, instead of two. That would result in six first-round playoff games instead of four. One of them presumably would be played on a Monday night.
The league and union could reach a deal on all of this separately, outside the framework of the next CBA. But that seems unlikely. When they attempted to reach a separate deal on the sport’s system of player discipline and Goodell’s role in it, those negotiations unravelled at the last minute. So now it seems likely that the disciplinary system will be addressed as part of the next CBA.
The sport’s marijuana policy likewise could be addressed in the next set of labour talks. The current CBA runs through 2020.
Goodell utilized a panel of four outside advisers when he decided to suspend Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games under the personal conduct policy, a penalty under appeal by Elliott and the NFLPA. Could that use of outside advisers in the Elliott case be a precursor to a willingness by the league to make such an independent panel a fixture in the system of player discipline under the next CBA?
The league has offered to conduct mutual research with the NFLPA into the potential use of marijuana as a pain-management tool for players. Could that be a precursor to significant changes in the marijuana policy as part of the next CBA?
And if the players get a discipline system more to their liking, a marijuana policy more to their liking and a shorter pre-season, what would the league seek in return? That is the big picture for all of this.
In the meantime, there does not seem to be great urgency among the owners to shorten the pre-season, despite what Goodell is saying. The pre-season “problem,” in the minds of some on the management side, has been addressed by going to variable ticket pricing, by which customers don’t pay as much for tickets to pre-season games as they pay for those to regular season games.
Cowboys executive Stephen Jones said earlier in training camp that he thinks the sport can live with the current length of the pre-season, given variable ticket pricing.
“I don’t know that we need any more games in terms of the overall package, the fact that you play 20 games in a season,” Jones said last month at the Cowboys’ training camp in Oxnard, Calif. “The way I look at pre-season is, because we’ve changed the way we price tickets now ... I don’t think it’s as big a deal.”
The Cowboys have a five-game pre-season this summer, having played in the Hall of Fame Game.
“We’ll be the first to tell you our coaching staff, our young players, us as ownership, our scouting department are thrilled we have five games ... All these young players need reps and we need to see who can contribute,” Jones said. “You’re not gonna be seeing a whole lot of Jason Witten in these early pre-season games. And then everybody says, ‘Oh, that’s not good for the product because they’re not seeing the best.’ Part of getting to the best product when you hit the regular season is developing these young guys so that when you do start Day 1 that you have the very best product you can put out on the field.
Jones says if rookies don’t get a chance to play in the pre-season “then you’re not gonna have the best product on the field when we play the Giants in Week 1 (of the regular season)
“To me, there’s some excitement there and if you variable-price and figure that out, then I don’t see the issue.”
The NFL should do things to the highest possible standards. Pre-season games are not that. NFL COMMISSIONER ROGER GOODELL