No Runny Eggs

As someone once said, all politics and no fun makes Egg a very dull boy. Since I merely want to be known as a dull boy, it’s time for a spiral. The Packers open up training camp in 17 days, so it’s time to start focusing on the NFL.

Unless you’ve been in a cave the last 2 years, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been looking at expanding the NFL season. Originally, he wanted to get it done in time for 2011 and the scheduled start of the new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players’ Association, but the clock has slid both that plan and the odds of an on-time new CBA back.

Originally, the thought was to add a single game, possibly at neutral sites, and likely a few outside the US if they went to neutral sites. That has morphed into converting 2 of the 4-5 preseason games into 2 additional regular-season games.

In addition to the injury angle that the NFLPA and some others have noted, that would make a hash of the “perfect” schedule the NFL put together when they went to 32 teams. Right now, each team plays its 3 division rivals in a home-and-home series, the 4 teams from a different division of the same conference, the 4 teams from a division in the other conference, and the 2 teams they otherwise wouldn’t play that finished in the same place in their division the previous year (the “parity” conference games). In fact, those who know how to read the standings, break ties, and remember previous seasons’ schedules know who their team is playing, and for 14 of those games, where, the moment the final gun goes off in the last regular-season game, with only the dates to be filled in.

A single added game would throw the entirety of that picture out of balance. Adding 2 games would, if schedule harmony were to be preserved, necessitate the elimination of the “parity” conference games in favor of playing a third division in either conference. Adding 3 games, which could be accomplished either by adding a third division in a team’s conference or adding “parity” non-conference games, would certainly seem make for a too-long season.

Since most of you who read this place are football fans (or at least I hope you are), it’s time to toss it out to the readership. Unlike Chicago and locations with court-ordered one-man/many-vote situations, vote early and vote once, because the poll closes at noon July 31.

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