If Chess Is for Intellectuals, Negotiations between the NFL and the PA are a Bad Game of Checkers

The NFL’s goal is to increase league revenue from the $8.5 billion it enjoyed last year to $25 billion in 2027... which, all things considered, translates into a lot more enjoyment for everyone involved. Except maybe the players... 

One tends to forget that professional football players do have a job and they have rights... of course, a lot of them do seem to end up waiving those rights en route to the nearest police station every now and then, but that is of little consequence. The fact of the matter is the league’s latest idea to increase the season by two games (from 16 to 18 games per team per year, taking away two pre-season games in the process) means more work for players. Even though football is technically a game it’s a particularly brutal game, during which serious injury is not so much a risk but an everyday occurrence.

As a result, you’ll be hard-pressed to find more than one currently employed NFL player that is completely on board with risking life and limb for a couple more weeks every season. That one player you probably could find? Likely Brett Favre, but he’s also the same guy that doesn’t realize that the sane thing to do when you break an ankle is to not continue subjecting it to weekly three-hour-long torture tests of trying to dance around opposing players who would sooner rip off your leg altogether than get grief on the sidelines for taking it easy on an old man.

In any case, the league’s proposal was reportedly met with a counter by the NFLPA, which is said to ask for the following:

1)      Two bye weeks instead of just one, which is like saying: “Get real, NFL. The football season drags on long enough. Don’t make it two weeks longer. Make it three!”

2)      Expanded rosters, i.e. creating more jobs at the elite level, which would likely also help alleviate the ever-pressing need to carry more than one long snapper on each team.

3)      A two-thirds reduction of off-season workouts, because, God knows, Washington Redskins nose tackle Albert Haynesworth is fit enough.

Clearly, football, in the U.S., is big business, so big in fact that its players have come down with a nasty case of considering themselves to be even bigger, thinking that they are the product, which is funny, seeing as the average NFL career lasts three-and-a-half seasons. Talk about employee turnover. These guys should be more worried about keeping their jobs than handing out new ones.

Not only that, but increasing roster sizes would water down the talent in the league. And a reduction in off-season workouts would water down the talent of its players. As such, it stands to reason that the NFL would never agree to such conditions. But wait: Considering that the league’s demands are just as unreasonable, resulting in a watered-down schedule, maybe there is hope an agreement can be reached after all. Let me explain:

The league trying to turn two pre-season games into two regular-season games is an admission of guilt of being greedy, whether it wants to see it that way or not. Pre-season games are meant to give coaching staffs the opportunity to see who deserves to make the team and who doesn’t.  By proposing to change half of those games into regular-season ones, the NFL is essentially saying that they’re not even that important, thereby casually admitting that all they’ve ever represented is a cash grab, a source of revenue to the tune of $400 million league-wide, one too great to ignore. The NFL likes squeezing as much as they can out of fans, and now it’s making it seem as though adding two regular-season games is its way of giving back. It’s actually a way of taking more. The league needs those two games about as much as Favre needs another scandal. Force the issue enough and it just might get one itself.

"Dude, I told you. I only go for hot women."

The fact that league revenues supposedly tripled from 1994 to 2009 is proof that the league is hitting its stride. So projecting it to be a $25-billion business by 2027 is somewhat realistic. But only if the product stays high-quality. Considering each side’s demands would lead to just the opposite, maybe it’s high time the status quo is considered.

Otherwise two extra games in theory will lead to none in practice, with a lockout a very real possibility. And that wouldn’t be fun for anybody... except maybe fans once they realize they can get their sports fix elsewhere for nowhere near the same cost. That’s a risk the NFL owners should think twice about taking.