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17 Game schedule?


Zerovoltz

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When it was first reported a while back that the NFL was going to ask for a 17 game schedule in the latest bargain round, I thought it was just one of those dumb requests you put in as a negotiating ploy to later be discarded as you started to narrow things down the items that really matter....but I've been reading reports that suggest it's an actual thing the owners want to put in place.

 

There was already going to be talk of cutting down preseason games from 4 to probably 2. I know teams generate revenue off those preseason games and often those are sold as part of season ticket packages...so maybe cutting 2 preseason and adding in one regular season game squares the revenue streams.....but there must be more to it than that? 17 game schedules present some possiblilties that the leauge might use to expand TV revenue further.....

 

I would guess they'd add a 2nd bye week in for every team.....and if you did that, you could concievably play games on non traditional game days. Follow me for a moment. LIVE sports...especially football...and in particular, the NFL, are one of the few things broadcast on TV that draw large audiences in a world where streaming and binge watching etc has taken a toll on traditional network television programming. If you have a 17 week, 2 bye schedule...you could sell the networks......Wednesday night double header NFL football.....or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night football games.

 

It might be a little hard to follow at first...but the Monday game would still be normal, and would be between two teams, not coming off their bye week(s) That wouldn't change.....

But let's say it's week 4, KC, Denver, Dallas, Philly, Seattle and San Fran All have byes (Sunday/Monday OFF)

Week 4 ends with the Monday night game....week 5 starts with.....TUESDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL with Dallas @ Philly. Wednesday NIGHT Football, KC@ Denver. and Thursday night football. Seattle @ San Fran. No football on Friday night as a continued nod to high school friday night lights..and saturday is college football. Then you play your sunday slate of games, and Monday night....week 5 ends. Week 6 starts with Tuesday night, and so on.

 

I haven't worked out an entire schedule of this to see how many teams would need to be on a bye and when etc.

The other thought here is, if you moved a team to London, and you had 2 byes for each team...you'd be able to ALWAYS get a team into London either coming off a bye or about to go into a bye to mitigate travel.....Plus the London team itself woudl get 2 byes....help it to also mitigate travel concerns....for example if London had to play Seattle...you could have that game comign off London's bye week so they could travel and practice better.

 

The last thing I figure is that the NFL is now a 32 team leauge. If you go to a 34 team league, you could ADD two teams, split them into 17 team conferences and work out a balanced schedule. Of the items I've considered here...I don't think this one is what they are aiming for....I really don't think the NFL wants to expand and therefore share revenue with two more owners.

That said....I'm not entirely sure how you get a 17th game in. Maybe an extra in conference game for each team?

Lastly.....a 17 game schedule would throw off the balance of Home and Away....and so my thought on this is that the NFL would do a bunch of nuetral site games. For exaample...all teams get 8 home and 8 away...and 1 neutral site. Maybe Denver and Seattle square off on Wednesday night football LIVE from Boise Idaho. Lots of Bronco and Seahawk fans in those parts. NFL throws the fans a bone. ....or Live from the University of Alabama, New Orleans VS Atlanta.....you could do a lot of these...including overseas games....Think expanding TV markets .....you could do any number of Europe, Japan, etc. Regular season games at neutral sites....


Anyhow...thoughts, comments...ideas? scorn?

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23 minutes ago, Zerovoltz said:

When it was first reported a while back that the NFL was going to ask for a 17 game schedule in the latest bargain round, I thought it was just one of those dumb requests you put in as a negotiating ploy to later be discarded as you started to narrow things down the items that really matter....but I've been reading reports that suggest it's an actual thing the owners want to put in place.

 

There was already going to be talk of cutting down preseason games from 4 to probably 2. I know teams generate revenue off those preseason games and often those are sold as part of season ticket packages...so maybe cutting 2 preseason and adding in one regular season game squares the revenue streams.....but there must be more to it than that? 17 game schedules present some possiblilties that the leauge might use to expand TV revenue further.....

 

I would guess they'd add a 2nd bye week in for every team.....and if you did that, you could concievably play games on non traditional game days. Follow me for a moment. LIVE sports...especially football...and in particular, the NFL, are one of the few things broadcast on TV that draw large audiences in a world where streaming and binge watching etc has taken a toll on traditional network television programming. If you have a 17 week, 2 bye schedule...you could sell the networks......Wednesday night double header NFL football.....or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night football games.

 

It might be a little hard to follow at first...but the Monday game would still be normal, and would be between two teams, not coming off their bye week(s) That wouldn't change.....

But let's say it's week 4, KC, Denver, Dallas, Philly, Seattle and San Fran All have byes (Sunday/Monday OFF)

Week 4 ends with the Monday night game....week 5 starts with.....TUESDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL with Dallas @ Philly. Wednesday NIGHT Football, KC@ Denver. and Thursday night football. Seattle @ San Fran. No football on Friday night as a continued nod to high school friday night lights..and saturday is college football. Then you play your sunday slate of games, and Monday night....week 5 ends. Week 6 starts with Tuesday night, and so on.

 

I haven't worked out an entire schedule of this to see how many teams would need to be on a bye and when etc.

The other thought here is, if you moved a team to London, and you had 2 byes for each team...you'd be able to ALWAYS get a team into London either coming off a bye or about to go into a bye to mitigate travel.....Plus the London team itself woudl get 2 byes....help it to also mitigate travel concerns....for example if London had to play Seattle...you could have that game comign off London's bye week so they could travel and practice better.

 

The last thing I figure is that the NFL is now a 32 team leauge. If you go to a 34 team league, you could ADD two teams, split them into 17 team conferences and work out a balanced schedule. Of the items I've considered here...I don't think this one is what they are aiming for....I really don't think the NFL wants to expand and therefore share revenue with two more owners.

That said....I'm not entirely sure how you get a 17th game in. Maybe an extra in conference game for each team?

Lastly.....a 17 game schedule would throw off the balance of Home and Away....and so my thought on this is that the NFL would do a bunch of nuetral site games. For exaample...all teams get 8 home and 8 away...and 1 neutral site. Maybe Denver and Seattle square off on Wednesday night football LIVE from Boise Idaho. Lots of Bronco and Seahawk fans in those parts. NFL throws the fans a bone. ....or Live from the University of Alabama, New Orleans VS Atlanta.....you could do a lot of these...including overseas games....Think expanding TV markets .....you could do any number of Europe, Japan, etc. Regular season games at neutral sites....


Anyhow...thoughts, comments...ideas? scorn?

Well, it’s an opportunity for the Chiefs to win 20 games in a season, instead of just 19.

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So where does the 17th game come from? Currently, there’s 4 vs an out of Conference Division, 4 vs a Conference Division, 2 Conference opponents based on previous season record and 6 Division games. ‘Nother Conference game based on last season record?

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1 hour ago, Zerovoltz said:

When it was first reported a while back that the NFL was going to ask for a 17 game schedule in the latest bargain round, I thought it was just one of those dumb requests you put in as a negotiating ploy to later be discarded as you started to narrow things down the items that really matter....but I've been reading reports that suggest it's an actual thing the owners want to put in place.

 

There was already going to be talk of cutting down preseason games from 4 to probably 2. I know teams generate revenue off those preseason games and often those are sold as part of season ticket packages...so maybe cutting 2 preseason and adding in one regular season game squares the revenue streams.....but there must be more to it than that? 17 game schedules present some possiblilties that the leauge might use to expand TV revenue further.....

 

I would guess they'd add a 2nd bye week in for every team.....and if you did that, you could concievably play games on non traditional game days. Follow me for a moment. LIVE sports...especially football...and in particular, the NFL, are one of the few things broadcast on TV that draw large audiences in a world where streaming and binge watching etc has taken a toll on traditional network television programming. If you have a 17 week, 2 bye schedule...you could sell the networks......Wednesday night double header NFL football.....or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night football games.

 

It might be a little hard to follow at first...but the Monday game would still be normal, and would be between two teams, not coming off their bye week(s) That wouldn't change.....

But let's say it's week 4, KC, Denver, Dallas, Philly, Seattle and San Fran All have byes (Sunday/Monday OFF)

Week 4 ends with the Monday night game....week 5 starts with.....TUESDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL with Dallas @ Philly. Wednesday NIGHT Football, KC@ Denver. and Thursday night football. Seattle @ San Fran. No football on Friday night as a continued nod to high school friday night lights..and saturday is college football. Then you play your sunday slate of games, and Monday night....week 5 ends. Week 6 starts with Tuesday night, and so on.

 

I haven't worked out an entire schedule of this to see how many teams would need to be on a bye and when etc.

The other thought here is, if you moved a team to London, and you had 2 byes for each team...you'd be able to ALWAYS get a team into London either coming off a bye or about to go into a bye to mitigate travel.....Plus the London team itself woudl get 2 byes....help it to also mitigate travel concerns....for example if London had to play Seattle...you could have that game comign off London's bye week so they could travel and practice better.

 

The last thing I figure is that the NFL is now a 32 team leauge. If you go to a 34 team league, you could ADD two teams, split them into 17 team conferences and work out a balanced schedule. Of the items I've considered here...I don't think this one is what they are aiming for....I really don't think the NFL wants to expand and therefore share revenue with two more owners.

That said....I'm not entirely sure how you get a 17th game in. Maybe an extra in conference game for each team?

Lastly.....a 17 game schedule would throw off the balance of Home and Away....and so my thought on this is that the NFL would do a bunch of nuetral site games. For exaample...all teams get 8 home and 8 away...and 1 neutral site. Maybe Denver and Seattle square off on Wednesday night football LIVE from Boise Idaho. Lots of Bronco and Seahawk fans in those parts. NFL throws the fans a bone. ....or Live from the University of Alabama, New Orleans VS Atlanta.....you could do a lot of these...including overseas games....Think expanding TV markets .....you could do any number of Europe, Japan, etc. Regular season games at neutral sites....


Anyhow...thoughts, comments...ideas? scorn?


Yes, I think they would probably expand the world games for the 17th game as a neutral site game.  They have so many cities to choose from.  Dubai would probably bring in the big bucks.  

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It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t see the Wednesday and Tuesday games ever becoming a thing. 
 

I haven’t read through much of the discussion on this topic, but a few points stand out to me: 

 

-17 games benefits players since they’ll likely seek expanded checks from owners, while 17 games not only gives them another chance at FULL stadium revenue, but lengthens the season another week into the year. 
 

- I formally request no regular season games to be played before Labor Day. That’d really annoy me. I love the current kickoff scheduling. It signifies the end of summer to me and the start of a new season. I don’t think and of us up in WNY need to feel like summer is getting shorter! 
 

- if they have two bye weeks, which I believe they’ve had before, I would like to see if they could push the Super Bowl into Presidents Day Weekend. They’d be able to keep their traditional Sunday game while providing the Monday relief many fans ask for. I don’t know the specifics, but I think between an extra bye and an extra game, it’d get you to that weekend. 
 

-Keep Wild Card Weekend as is. It’s my favorite non-championship weekend of the year

 

-Reseed teams based on record for byes/home field advantage. I don’t want to see any 9-7 division winners hosting a 10-6 wild card team

 

Scheduling and Playoffs would be interesting to see how they’d reconfigure them, but is to tricky for my simple brain. 

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7 minutes ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t see the Wednesday and Tuesday games ever becoming a thing. 
 

I haven’t read through much of the discussion on this topic, but a few points stand out to me: 

 

-17 games benefits players since they’ll likely seek expanded checks from owners, while 17 games not only gives them another chance at FULL stadium revenue, but lengthens the season another week into the year. 
 

- I formally request no regular season games to be played before Labor Day. That’d really annoy me. I love the current kickoff scheduling. It signifies the end of summer to me and the start of a new season. I don’t think and of us up in WNY need to feel like summer is getting shorter! 
 

- if they have two bye weeks, which I believe they’ve had before, I would like to see if they could push the Super Bowl into Presidents Day Weekend. They’d be able to keep their traditional Sunday game while providing the Monday relief many fans ask for. I don’t know the specifics, but I think between an extra bye and an extra game, it’d get you to that weekend. 
 

-Keep Wild Card Weekend as is. It’s my favorite non-championship weekend of the year

 

-Reseed teams based on record for byes/home field advantage. I don’t want to see any 9-7 division winners hosting a 10-6 wild card team

 

Scheduling and Playoffs would be interesting to see how they’d reconfigure them, but is to tricky for my simple brain. 

 

If you are going to have divisions, then there needs to be something to gain by winning the division.  Also....since we are on the issue of homefields for playoffs...I have one tweek I'd like to propose for regular season and playoff games EXCLUDING the super bowl......but get rid of the coin toss.  The home team can decide if they want to defer, take the wind, etc.  Or if you want to only do this in playoff games...fine...but make the benefit of acheiveing homefield, have some benefit.

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17 minutes ago, Zerovoltz said:

 

If you are going to have divisions, then there needs to be something to gain by winning the division.  Also....since we are on the issue of homefields for playoffs...I have one tweek I'd like to propose for regular season and playoff games EXCLUDING the super bowl......but get rid of the coin toss.  The home team can decide if they want to defer, take the wind, etc.  Or if you want to only do this in playoff games...fine...but make the benefit of acheiveing homefield, have some benefit.


I agree.
 

However, winning your division could still guarantee you a playoff spot, as it does now, without guaranteeing you home field advantage.

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Richard Sherman is accusing the NFL of making false statements that they are close on a new CBA that contains an extra playoff team and 17 game schedule. Eric Weddle tweeted that it would be a travesty if the players accepted a 17 game schedule and it shouldn't be on the table. Sherman tweeted back that it really isn't and the NFL is using the media to make it seem like it is...

 

Sherman also is adamant there will be a lockout in 2020 and is telling players to save their money and be prepared.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/richard-sherman-tells-nfl-players-to-save-their-money-and-prepare-for-a-strike-161511336.html

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This is an awesome post! Thank you for taking the time to write it. 

I love everything schedule-related--I've always enjoyed posts like this where the real "logistics nerds" can bounce ideas off each other.

I was initially opposed to the 17 game schedule because no team would ever finish .500, but when I realized it's the only major North American sport with ties, so teams are already not finishing .500, I got over that. Although a very small part of me still can't get over the uneven number, I just want to "fix it" somehow, because I know it makes the schedule instantly unbalanced in terms of who that 17th game is played against. There are two directions it could go, as I see it--either keep everything "fair and balanced", or throw caution to the wind.

Since the NFL is all about "fairness", the first approach would be to take draft order standings (before trades are applied), and the 17th game is played against the team that follows you in the draft. So the team . with the first pick plays the team with the second; 3&4, 5&6, etc. It would guarantee a Super Bowl rematch every year, which would be cool.

Now if the NfL wanted to get crazy, I say make the scheduling more random, like it used to be in the early 90s when the AFC east was 5 teams, the central was 6, and the west was 4. I think it might send some millennial fans to the psych ward when the schedule came out and we were going back to back at the Seahawks home for the Packers, when the Patriots get a 4 week home stretch against the Skins/Bucs/Lions/Cards, but ripping the bandaid off of the perfect formula that the NFL uses for scheduling would be kinda nice. Personally (and this may just be me) I am bored to tears with the predictability of the NFL schedule and the lack of variance in scheduling between teams in the same division. It just feels like in a sport where you only play 16 games, against 13 out of 32 teams, there should be WAY more than 2 games difference between our schedule and New England's.You might say "well they're in the same division, so to accurately determine a division winner, they should face a similar slate of gams." At which point you get into the question of whether or not the divisions should be reconfigured. Personally, and again, this may just be me--I HATE 4 team divisions. 

A lot of questions with this, for sure. 

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NFL should stick with the 16 game schedule, but with no bye week. Limit pre-season to 2 games and have a 16 team playoff with no byes for division winners. Go with #1 vs #8 and so forth.

 

END Thursday night games. Expand active rosters.

 

.....it'll stick to the wall about as good as whatever else they're throwing around.

 

 

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52 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Richard Sherman is accusing the NFL of making false statements that they are close on a new CBA that contains an extra playoff team and 17 game schedule. Eric Weddle tweeted that it would be a travesty if the players accepted a 17 game schedule and it shouldn't be on the table. Sherman tweeted back that it really isn't and the NFL is using the media to make it seem like it is...

 

Sherman also is adamant there will be a lockout in 2020 and is telling players to save their money and be prepared.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/richard-sherman-tells-nfl-players-to-save-their-money-and-prepare-for-a-strike-161511336.html

Sherman is also an attention wh*re who’s nowhere near as intelligent as he fancies himself.

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4 minutes ago, Chandler#81 said:

Sherman is also an attention wh*re who’s nowhere near as intelligent as he fancies himself.

 

Dude has to be pretty smart to get into Stanford, they don't dumb down their admissions for football players...also had a 4.2 GPA in high school and was Salutatorian(2nd in his class) so its not like he had to get some special exemption or take extra classes to get in...

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1 hour ago, matter2003 said:

Richard Sherman is accusing the NFL of making false statements that they are close on a new CBA that contains an extra playoff team and 17 game schedule. Eric Weddle tweeted that it would be a travesty if the players accepted a 17 game schedule and it shouldn't be on the table. Sherman tweeted back that it really isn't and the NFL is using the media to make it seem like it is...

 

Sherman also is adamant there will be a lockout in 2020 and is telling players to save their money and be prepared.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/richard-sherman-tells-nfl-players-to-save-their-money-and-prepare-for-a-strike-161511336.html

 

In this week's episode of the Lo-Down Murphy said something Zo assuming the reports about a 17 game season are correct: "breakthrough".  Turns out he is one of the NFLPA reps and he became quite heated and eloquent about it.  Denies that talks have been held - all the player reps are busy preparing and playing and don't have time.  Says that he would need to know what the NFL will give up for the players to agree to 17 games as it's more wear and tear on the player's bodies.

 

https://www.buffalobills.com/video/the-lo-down-with-lorenzo-alexander-x3481

about 12 minutes in

 

24 minutes ago, Chandler#81 said:

Sherman is also an attention wh*re who’s nowhere near as intelligent as he fancies himself.

 

Sherman has always struck me as a pretty smart guy who has a loud mouth at times.  2nd in his HS class, 4.2 GPA.  They don't let you into Stanford if you need remedial writing class or you take your socks off for math problems.  He might be as smart as he thinks he is, he's just got a big fat mouth and no filter.

 

But essentially Zo said about the same things in a more measured way - that the player reps have really not been part of negotiations to date and there's some media puffery going on by the NFL.  See above.

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I’m also a big soccer fan. (No commercials!) Why not expand to 17 games and have two bye weeks during the season in which ALL of the teams are off? That’s what they do in the English Premier League. This gives fans the break time during the football season to do things with family, take a trip (we went to London this year on the bye week)...etc

 

I really hate the staggered bye because it throws stats and records out the window while teams are cycling through their bye. Not to mention that it’s really a league imposed arbitrary advantage or disadvantage as to when you get your bye.

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1 hour ago, NewEra said:

Sunday and Monday.  Those are football days imo.  I hate Thursday night games.  I hate Saturday games.

 

other than that, I believe 17 games with 2 byes will happen soon

I don't mind Saturday games late in season during the holidays

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12 hours ago, Zerovoltz said:

When it was first reported a while back that the NFL was going to ask for a 17 game schedule in the latest bargain round, I thought it was just one of those dumb requests you put in as a negotiating ploy to later be discarded as you started to narrow things down the items that really matter....but I've been reading reports that suggest it's an actual thing the owners want to put in place.

 

There was already going to be talk of cutting down preseason games from 4 to probably 2. I know teams generate revenue off those preseason games and often those are sold as part of season ticket packages...so maybe cutting 2 preseason and adding in one regular season game squares the revenue streams.....but there must be more to it than that? 17 game schedules present some possiblilties that the leauge might use to expand TV revenue further.....

 

I would guess they'd add a 2nd bye week in for every team.....and if you did that, you could concievably play games on non traditional game days. Follow me for a moment. LIVE sports...especially football...and in particular, the NFL, are one of the few things broadcast on TV that draw large audiences in a world where streaming and binge watching etc has taken a toll on traditional network television programming. If you have a 17 week, 2 bye schedule...you could sell the networks......Wednesday night double header NFL football.....or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night football games.

 

It might be a little hard to follow at first...but the Monday game would still be normal, and would be between two teams, not coming off their bye week(s) That wouldn't change.....

But let's say it's week 4, KC, Denver, Dallas, Philly, Seattle and San Fran All have byes (Sunday/Monday OFF)

Week 4 ends with the Monday night game....week 5 starts with.....TUESDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL with Dallas @ Philly. Wednesday NIGHT Football, KC@ Denver. and Thursday night football. Seattle @ San Fran. No football on Friday night as a continued nod to high school friday night lights..and saturday is college football. Then you play your sunday slate of games, and Monday night....week 5 ends. Week 6 starts with Tuesday night, and so on.

 

I haven't worked out an entire schedule of this to see how many teams would need to be on a bye and when etc.

The other thought here is, if you moved a team to London, and you had 2 byes for each team...you'd be able to ALWAYS get a team into London either coming off a bye or about to go into a bye to mitigate travel.....Plus the London team itself woudl get 2 byes....help it to also mitigate travel concerns....for example if London had to play Seattle...you could have that game comign off London's bye week so they could travel and practice better.

 

The last thing I figure is that the NFL is now a 32 team leauge. If you go to a 34 team league, you could ADD two teams, split them into 17 team conferences and work out a balanced schedule. Of the items I've considered here...I don't think this one is what they are aiming for....I really don't think the NFL wants to expand and therefore share revenue with two more owners.

That said....I'm not entirely sure how you get a 17th game in. Maybe an extra in conference game for each team?

Lastly.....a 17 game schedule would throw off the balance of Home and Away....and so my thought on this is that the NFL would do a bunch of nuetral site games. For exaample...all teams get 8 home and 8 away...and 1 neutral site. Maybe Denver and Seattle square off on Wednesday night football LIVE from Boise Idaho. Lots of Bronco and Seahawk fans in those parts. NFL throws the fans a bone. ....or Live from the University of Alabama, New Orleans VS Atlanta.....you could do a lot of these...including overseas games....Think expanding TV markets .....you could do any number of Europe, Japan, etc. Regular season games at neutral sites....


Anyhow...thoughts, comments...ideas? scorn?

Put down the beer

 

the league will not do that. Fans will get turned off with having games 5 nights during the week.

 

it has been talked about of having Thursday night games ( highest TV ad revenue night) be with teams coming off bye weeks.

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