What Others Have to Say

The other groups out there, not including me, in this discussion include the players, owners, other fans, coaches, sports writers, and the NFL executives. From the perspective of the owners, team executives, and NFL executives they say that this schedule change is good for the NFL. They say that by adding two extra games it will increase their revenue and income. They also believe that the fans will love the extra two games. Fans love football and two more games will just make it better in the opinion of the owners and the executives. I know personally once the Super Bowl is over it is a long wait until the start of the next season and the NBA or MLB does not fill that void for me left by the end of football season. This idea that fans would want more games at first seems logical. I just hope they don’t expand it too much so that they end up turning this into the NBA or MLB where their seasons seem to last almost the entire year. The other part that the owners and executives want deals with the collective bargaining agreement. The old collective bargaining agreement expires in May. They want to expand the season to 18 games and get the players to agree to receive less money in the new agreement. This is where the sports writing community sees their argument is fatally flawed. Why would the owners and executives think that players would want to take more risk with the two extra games and receive less money for that? Now most people on all sides say that this change is inevitable as well. They say that the owners just have too much power and the players can not block this agreement. Most of the writers and people in the writing community believe that the fans have little to no impact on this and the players don’t have much more power to stop this schedule change. The players also get a say in this however and almost all of the players have said that for health reasons they would rather not play two extra games. A lot of them have pointed out that the NFL is currently focusing on protecting the players and players’ health but then wants to add two extra games. The players see this as a contradiction to the NFL executives’ new push for better safety and player health. This is where the battle lines are drawn between the owners and the players. They each have different and opposing views but one can hope they can reach an agreement so there will not be a lockout next season.