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Two more NFL games is too much

               In peril over the years from alarmists, two-a-day workouts were the place where NFL coaches in the past felt they had to draw a line in the sand. Or, in this torrid summer anyway, in the brown and withered grass.Without two-a-days, a manly game became soft and dissolute. New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott said of one-a-days, which sound like vitamins, not feared drills, "I get concerned you're making football players weaker because you don't push them past that [pain] threshold."
Two-a-days had been a male-bonding ritual since before the days of leather helmets. But they are banned under the new NFL collective bargaining agreement. Next thing you know, the he-men will be playing golf after workouts, like baseball players.
There is a chance the halving of two-a-days, the reduction of contact in practice and the loss of organized team activities (OTAs) because of the lockout are not going to mean less punishment and time on the field in the long run. They could lead to more full-speed hitting. Two games more.
It was a suspicion all along, as soon as rumors surfaced that two-a-days would be sacrificed in the new CBA. The owners had wanted an 18-game regular season at the start of the late, unlamented lockout because of fan unhappiness with four full-priced exhibition games. The players balked. Exhibition games are cameo appearances for proven vets. They provide easy money for owners. Much of the play is not exactly at a pitched level because coaches want to spare injuries and evaluate talent. Only rookies and vets in danger of not making the team have much at stake.
Still, owners such as Dallas' Jerry Jones don't commonly make altruistic, caring gestures like cutting out two-a-days without expecting something in return -- more revenue, mainly. Three years, four max, the cynic in me said, and the owners would be back, demanding 18 regular-season games again.
Lo and behold, before the CBA had even been signed, Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio reported that the league could unilaterally cut the preseason schedule from four games to two in 2013 or any subsequent year of the 10-year agreement. The players would have the option to either play 16 regular-season games and two preseason games, or increase the regular season to 18 games per team. Players would lose money if they stayed at 16 plus two, because they receive only nominal pay for exhibition games.
So in 2013, the push will begin again to extend the season. It would be a big mistake.
It would invite a spike in injuries. The players already take the field at the end of the season so battered that a fife and drum should accompany them. Teams are running out of players by the end of even a 16-game grind. So rosters would need to be expanded.
Eighteen games that count would refute the image of the NFL as a league determined to increase workplace safety. Suspensions beginning this season for vicious hits, a better-late-than-never awareness of the dangers of concussions, new kickoff rules designed to reduce the number of such full-speed collisions -- all these steps would be offset by a two-game increase in the player workload.
It would alter the record book, not by brilliance, but by the sheer cumulative weight of more games. One of the great records, Pro Football Hall of Famer Dick "Night Train" Lane's 14 interceptions in a 12-game season in 1952, might finally fall in a schedule half-again as long.
There are plenty of meaningless games at the end of the season with 16 games. With 18, there might be two weeks of top teams resting players, when games are often decided by which team barely cares.
Look what expansion of the NCAA men's basketball schedule to 35 or more games and of the NCAA Tournament field to 68 teams has done to the integrity of the regular season. For many teams, the regular season is only a long dress rehearsal for the Big Dance.
Only college football still has a season in which, to play for the top prize, every single game is important.
"We play enough games. You have a system that works. Why add them? I would rather not have the money," said Steelers chairman emeritus Dan Rooney.

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