The National Football League announced this week they will proceed with a 17-game regular season starting in 2021. However, the fact the NFL will be having an odd number of regular season games for the first time since the strike-shortened 1987 season, was not supported by the Chicago Bears according to Seth Wickersham of ESPN.
The issue that Bears chairman George McCaskey seems to have is in connection to players’ health and safety. The bottom line is when each team plays an extra game, the chances of injuries increase as well. Even though McCaskey did not specifically state the reasons why the Bears did not support an increased NFL regular season schedule, that has been his concern in the past.
By adding a week to the regular season schedule, National Football League revenue is expected to increase in 2021. This comes a season after the League lost an opportunity to generate significant income by not playing football on a weekly basis in front of capacity crowds. We have already seen the NFL announce there will be a salary cap drop of 8% this season.
Personally, I am somewhat of a traditionalist. There is nothing wrong with 16 games and by adding the season to 17 brings more questions than answers. One issue is that half the teams in the NFL will now have one more home game than the other half. This scheduling imbalance could give half the teams in the NFL a huge advantage over the other half. It will also be interesting to see when the NFL follows the Canadian Football League and has 18 regular season games per season.
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