Ryan Kang/Getty ImagesThe NFL and its owners are in the business of making money, even at the expense of player health, so its inevitable that there will eventually be a push to expand the regular season by another game, to 18 in total.
And there's the possibility that the NFL Players Association won't fight it tooth and nail despite expectations.
According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the NFLPA is "already bracing for" the owners to propose the 18-game schedule.
Per that report, "one of the things the NFLPA has to ponder is whether and to what extent the players want it. There's a sense, we're told, that plenty of young players are fine with it. Their votes count the same as the older players who bristle at adding to the workload."
At the very least, it promises to lead to interesting debates among the players.
"I think it's up to every player to decide," Indianapolis Colts center Ryan Kelly, a member of the NFLPA's executive committee, told ESPN's Brooke Pryor. "If they said, 'Hey, you guys get 70 percent of revenue and we'll take 30 as owners,' a lot of guys would sign up for that if you make $100 million playing quarterback [the current revenue split is approximately 52 percent to 48 percent in favor of owners]. So I think everybody's got a line they draw in the sand, and we'll see where that is."
Pat McAfee @PatMcAfeeShow"I think we're good at seventeen games right now but we're always looking at how we continue..<br><br>I'm not a fan of the preseason and I'd replace a preseason game with a regular season game any day" ~ <a href="https://twitter.com/nflcommish?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nflcommish</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PMSLive?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PMSLive</a> <a href="https://t.co/Tv8xdjkSXJ">pic.twitter.com/Tv8xdjkSXJ</a>
Pryor noted that 46 percent of the NFL players that ESPN polled were in favor of an 18-game schedule with stipulations, while only eight percent voted yes without stipulations. Nineteen percent were completely against expanding the regular season, and 27 percent didn't offer a strong opinion either way.
Ultimately, the debate is simple—player safety vs. money.
"You're talking about player safety, but how do you have player safety when you add a game?" Steelers offensive lineman James Daniels told Pryor. "If they were worried about player safety, it would take away games, but it's not about player safety, it's about money and extra games—an extra prime-time game—that brings millions of dollars to the NFL, millions of dollars to cities everywhere. I understand it from both sides."
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