I’m still officially on hiatus, but I couldn’t help but comment on this NY Times article about the NFL. As you know, I’m not an NFL guy, but I’ve been interested in this move to the 18-game season.
Let me talk about something first to set the stage for my discussion on the NFL. Skip to the end if you don’t want to read my soccer mumbo-jumbo. 
The EPL (English Premier League), or BPL (Barclay’s Premier League) as I’ve been hearing it called for the first times recently, has this type of discussion all the time. The next few sentences here are simply back-story, but stick with me. The German League has 18 teams in it, which cuts out 4 games. The Spanish League has 20 teams, but has only one domestic cup. The Italian League has two domestic cups and 20 teams in the league. The French League also is a 20 and 2. I’m not going to pretend to know if there is talk of shortening the season in France or Italy, but the argument against Italy could certainly be that the weather is better there than in the English (and Wales*…which is probably why BPL is catching on). The same could be said for France, though not to the degree of Italy.
The Germans have a winter break with their four games and one cup removed from the schedule. Many want a winter break in England (and Wales, let’s not forget them). I’m not sure about other leagues with winter breaks. Some leagues, such as my beloved Fotbollsallsvenskan take off the entire winter, but that’s not what we are talking about here. We’re talking about taking December off, or something like that.
Here’s where we bring it all back to the NFL…the EPL/BPL has the same problem the NFL does. Christmas games are a big deal in England, and doing away with that would destroy traditions.
I realize people are resistant to change, but there’s no reason change has to destroy *important* traditions. I’d claim there’s a difference in “the way things have always been done” and a true tradition. True tradition has emotional value and not just stick-in-the-mud resistance to change.
Let’s assume we stick with 16 games in the NFL. If you don’t see where I’m going yet – the NFL could have some sort of winter break. I’d suggest in between Thanksgiving and Christmas for both the EPL and NFL. That way Christmas and Thanksgiving games could be held. Maybe between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. Let everyone do their shopping, watch basketball and hockey, spend time with their family, study for exams and anything else that a human might do when it’s not NFL season. Give the players some time to rest and come back refreshed so we can watch the best of the best battle it out for the playoff spots. No one likes it when their team is put out because of an injury…except the team that takes their place and even then there’s always that nagging “well if Joe Montana [or whoever] hadn’t gotten hurt…” The same, of course, is true of the EPL, though their season extends to May and not the first weekend in February. The EPL has the additional problem of having to deal with the World Cup every four years (and continental competitions every 2), but that’s neither here nor there. What the EPL does only moderately affects us in the US as there are only a handful of US internationals playing in the league and game times are early enough on Saturdays as to be a royal pain and the others are during the work day.
The NFL would have to work out at what week to start the break. This year Thanksgiving is week 12. That seems a little late. I’m not going to go into the options in detail, but the season could be moved into August to give the southern teams the advantage the northern teams have in the winter. Then the break could be between the playoffs and the season. This is essentially what happens in college football (well, division I-AA conferences without a conference championship, anyway). The other option is to move it to week 10. Both of those have advantages and disadvantages. If there’s a lot of feedback, maybe I’ll spend some time going through those, but for now, it’s just something to ponder.
When it’s all said and done, what could be better than a Super Bowl in late February, followed by March Madness, followed by NBA and NHL playoff pushes and then playoffs? All this and you still get to see Thanksgiving and Christmas games and spend some time with your family.
*Scotland has it’s own, well-respected league. Northern Ireland has a less-respected league (to be honest, I wasn’t even sure they had a league until doing a little research!).
