Safety is the issue in a longer NFL season

Steelers veterans like proposal to cut preseason games

As an organization, the Steelers are not opposed to shortening the preseason, as commissioner Roger Goodell has suggested once again. But, their support of the idea would depend on what would happen to the regular season if the preseason were reduced from four to two games.

The Steelers would be in favor of a reduction in preseason games as long as two more games were not added to the regular season. They might be a little more amendable if one more game were added, but they are against expanding the season to 18.

The idea of reducing the preseason by two games is appealing to every veteran player, especially those such as Ben Roethlisberger and Maurkice Pouncey, who only play in one preseason game anyway.

It is not so attractive, though, to younger players who need the preseason games — at least more than two — to impress the coaches and make an NFL roster.

“That’s a lot of games,” defensive end Stephon Tuitt said. “I’m a young guy, but, at

the same time, you talk to our older vets, that’s a lot of games.”

Ramon Foster, the secondlongest tenured player on the team behind Roethlisberger, added: “To add two more regular-season games, you’re beating up guys now, you’re shortening careers if that’s what you want to do. You might get a higher profit margin, but the product might not be as good. That’s me. I don’t know if I want to go to nine different stadiums.”

Earlier this week, Goodell reiterated his stance of wanting to reduce the preseason schedule to two games just as the league is beginning preliminary talks with the players association about a new collective bargaining agreement. After talking with some of the NFL coaches, Goodell said, “I’m not sure that four preseason games is necessary any more to get ready for a season to evaluate players, develop players.”

In exchange, the league has proposed increasing the regular season to 18 games. Players have balked at the proposal by citing safety issues and a desire to receive additional compensation for playing a longer regular season.

“It’s not even the money part,” said Pouncey, a Pro Bowl center who begins his eighth season with the Steelers. “We get paid really good. It’s just the whole thing about safety, the body. Eighteen games is a lot. Ask the guys who play in the playoffs every year.”

The NFL also has considered adding an extra wildcard team to each conference, increasing the number of playoff teams to 14.

“I like the seventh playoff team [idea] more than I like the 18-game season,” Foster said. “You get better football in the playoffs.”

Said Pro Bowl defensive end Cam Heyward: “It’s a grind. They can’t add more games and more games to the playoffs. That’d just be ludicrous.”

For the past several years, coach Mike Tomlin has held players such as Roethlisberger and Pouncey out of three of the four preseason games. Others such as Heyward, guard David DeCastro and cornerback Joe Haden do not play in two games.

“When it doesn’t count, it kind of [stinks]], to be honest with you,” Heyward said. “I think last year I only played two preseason games, so I might be the wrong candidate to ask, but everybody’s different. Some guys, they want to see how they’re coming off of injury, how they deal with that, how they bounce back. But some guys, you want to keep off the field.”

“Anything to get to the season the fastest, I’m for it,” receiver Ryan Switzer said. “You give away some games, it’s better for you physically, mentally, health-wise. But then some guys who might need that last game to put some tape out, it might hurt them.”

Tomlin routinely talks how important the final preseason game can be for players trying to make the team, even showing them a video compilation of guys who made the final roster because of plays they made in the fourth preseason game. One of them was even Antonio Brown, a sixth-round pick in 2010 who impressed with his performance on the coverage teams. Fullback Roosevelt Nix secured his spot when he blocked a punt in the final preseason game in 2015.

Josh Dobbs not only won the No. 2 quarterback spot with the way he played in the final preseason game in 2018, he pushed veteran Landry Jones out of a job. Those opportunities will be severely restricted, if not eliminated, if the preseason were reduced to two games.

“For me, a guy like me, the more reps and the more game experience I can get — and to get a chance to put more plays on film — the better,” said receiver Diontae Spencer, a first-year player who spent 2018 in the Canadian Football League.