Players Careers would get shorter, contracts would become fatter, and makes the playoffs just not as exciting with very tired players IMO. Keep it the way it is. Enough with the non-sense.
Just a thought.. reduce Pre season to 3 games. Keep a 16 game schedule. Add 2 playoff teams to eliminate the bye. 4 division winners and 4 wild card teams. 1 vs 8 2 vs 7 3 vs 6 4 vs 5
I don't think they will start the season earlier. It sounds like they would still start the season after Labor Day then the season would extend deep into February.
They almost use that gear as a weapon now. I know it was a very violent game but just w/ the size, speed and strength of these guys it has become even more brutal in my opinion. Guys that were the biggest players in the league along the lines are now skill position players at that size. No we wouldn't, the talk is to start the season even later to have the season extend to the end of February. They aren't starting before Labor Day either way.
I miss opneing the season on LD weekend where we got football on Sunday and the day off from school/work on Monday.
I'm not for 18 games at all. While it's fun to have more football, it also makes it more difficult to field a healthy roster all season. I don't like the 4 pre-season games. It's way too much. Should just be 2. Third choice is ideal.
Size and speed is all relative. The defensive players are bigger and faster than they were in the 70's but they are tackling players that are bigger and faster. Football was almost banned as a sport in the early 1900's because of the obscene amount of deaths due to the gameplay. Those players were not bigger or faster than today's players, but I would find it hard to argue that the game wasn't more violent then than today's game. Rules and protective gear make today's game less violent than it was back then imo. As a point of reference, I don't know of a single player in today's game that is more violent than Jack Lambert or Dick Butkus.
I like that!! but then again you might have the same problem that the NBA (specifically the Eastern Conference) does with teams that have losing records making it into the playoffs
bigger and fasters defensive players tackling bigger and faster offensive players makes for bigger and more violent collisions. There are guys that can play in any era that you can provide examples of but most players from the pre 80s wouldn't be able to survive against the players today.
Right, but because the game is bigger and faster. Not because it's more violent. The hits are harder, but that doesn't make it a more violent game today. There are rules that limit the amount of violence today that weren't in place in the 1970's. There's protection for QB's, protection for defenseless receivers, no late hits, no hits to the helmet, no headslap, no touching a receiver past 5 yards, no clothesline tackles etc. in today's game.
Those rules are in place b/c we'd see deaths on the field on a routine basis if they weren't in place.
Right, making today's game more safe than the way it was played in the 1970's. If you notice most injuries today are due to freak accidents more than from the hits.
Ditto that. Getting in and out of Foxboro on a Thursday night is also an 8-hour commitment I wasn't willing to make anymore.
