NFL’s 17-game regular season comes with plenty of negatives

The Chicago Bears got it right.

How many times can you say this?

The Bears reportedly voted against expanding the NFL regular season to 17 games. However, league commissioner Roger Goodell was thrilled with the addition of another regular season week.

“This is a monumental moment in NFL history,” said Goodell in a news release.

Saints running back Alvin Kamara did not agree. In a tweet, he called the addition of 17th game, among other things, dumb as hell.

The addition of a 17th game makes it likely that a team with a losing record will make the playoffs.

Last season, the 8-8 Bears made it, only to fall to the Saints in the Wild Card round. The 7-9 Washington Football Team made the playoffs as a division champion.

A 17th game means more money for many players. One report said that Lions quarterback Jared Goff will earn an additional $1.5 million by playing a 17th game.

However, my guess is most players are opposed to the additional game.

By the end of a 16-game regular season, a huge toll on players and bloated injury report has been the norm.

Tell me how the NFL can parrot its stance on player safety being paramount and then add another game?

Oh, and let’s face it.

Many NFL games are not very good.

If you don’t have quality quarterback play, you don’t have a chance to have a great season.  In 2020, 18 of the league’s 32 teams finished with eight wins or fewer.

Nine teams won five games or less.

Who needs to see more of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Jets?  Certainly not their fans, who have suffered enough.

One of the great things about the NFL regular season used to be that the games counted for something. Now the 13-win Packers are in the same postseason field with a division opponent, Chicago, who won five less games.

Of course, money drives the train. More games, supposedly more eyeballs and definitely more cash will be the results.

The last time the NFL expanded regular season games was from 14 to 16 in 1978.

That was a good thing.

Six preseason games was torturous. The same, of course, could be said of more games like the Detroit Lions against the Denver Broncos.

I guess, in New Orleans, we have been spoiled with so much good football since the Payton/Brees era kicked off in 2006.

If the Saints are not good in 2021, the last thing I want to see is more of them.

The earliest a potential 18th regular season game can happen is 2031.

Please God, save us.