this National Football League Excited for the historic 2021 season, but not everyone should be so excited.
Less than a week before the start of the new NFL season, the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers will host the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday. 2021 will be the first time each team will play 17 games in 18 weeks. Season.
NFL President Roger Goodell touted an expanded roster of 16 games in 17 weeks, which is the standard for 30 of the past 31 seasons and a victory for everyone. Fans will be very happy because they can participate in the regular season one more week and one less pointless preseason game. The players should be happy because they have an extra week of rest between training camp and week 1, and the NFL changed goodbye in the weeks later this season, when injured participants need them most.
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The boss and the alliance should naturally be the happiest. The enhanced version means there is still a week to host international games-the NFL announced that each team will play abroad at least once every eight years-and more tickets and TV revenue, because the regular season is more valuable. The results also proved this, because the alliance sold 11 years of television broadcasting rights for more than $100 billion in March.
The NFL wants everyone to believe that this is a joint effort between the owner and the NFL Players Association, and they must approve any changes to the regular season. When the deal and the newly reached collective bargaining agreement were announced in March, Goodall attributed the credit to the players.
“This is a landmark moment in NFL history,” Goodall said at the time. “The CBA with the players and the recently completed media agreements have laid the foundation for us to improve the quality of experience for NFL fans. One of the benefits of playing 17 regular season games is that we can continue to grow our games around the world.”
But the reality is that the league has long hoped for a 17-game season, and if there is no opposition from the league, it would have them a few years ago. In addition, even if the players finally agreed to an enhanced schedule, they only won by a score of 51-49.
Players know that more regular season means more injuries. They insisted on another bye week, which is not unprecedented-the NFL tried an 18-week season in 1993, with two byes, and then returned to a 17-week bye period. For a league that has been plagued by injuries after career, especially the negative publicity of CTE, another week is prudent.
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New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara (Alvin Kamara), he called it “extremely stupid”, and defensive winger Cam Jordan (Cam Jordan) is one of the most outspoken people against enhanced boards.
These emotions were present before Kamara and Jordan discovered that the Saints meet in week 6 this season, which means that if they are to win the Super Bowl, they may have to play 16 games in 15 and 17 consecutive weeks-because Only the top seeds of the AFC and the National League will see each other for the second consecutive season in the playoffs.
This seems very inhumane.
Player contracts will also remain unchanged, which means that each competitor will not receive an extra week of extra pay before negotiating a new contract. Players may eventually be able to get more money, because additional games will also bring better bonuses due to data inflation.
However, there is another problem with expanding the list: it will overturn the league’s record book. Another game meant that the 1,000-yard sprint plateau was further diluted. A season of 5,000 passes, a feat that was once unheard of, has exceeded 11 times since 2008, and will undoubtedly become the standard of happy passing professional football.
The goal of 19-0 has always been an unreachable mountain, and now it is 20-0, a rounder but more difficult peak to climb.
In addition, more games means that in bad weather, there will be more end-of-season games between bad teams. Faced with insignificant indifferent fans, they are just trying to make their money worthwhile, and at the same time Also pay for an extra week of season tickets.
Therefore, the 17-game schedule may look good on paper, and the NFL will try to convince all of us that this will be special, but it remains to be seen whether this is the case.
