Source: Under no circumstance 18 gm schedule

[bucky]

You shut your mouth. If anything we need more baseball.

Sorry SK, but 162 regular season games = too long. Even with the excitement around Brewers Camp this year.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

Not to derail, but 162 is ok for baseball, because milestones and stats are a significant part of the game. I would say scaling back to 154, like the old days, would be ok, but shaving anything more would be a mistake imo. Baseball is designed as a long journy, its not a short attention span sport in any regard.

Football, and especially basketball, are far less stat/milestone driven, so the idea of changing the number of games doesn't offend me like it does for baseball.

 

[KINGOFOOTBALL]

I wouldnt mind 14 games and/or another bye week.
Ive been a 154 games and contraction guy for a long time for MLB.
Youd have to drag me to a tv with a gun to watch regular season NBA so even 20 is still too much.


I do think the current setup is ideal. 4 pre-season games for player evaluation. "Starters" barely get a 3/4 to a full games worth of reps in those 4 games. Most teams do not put out there best blitz packages. Most veterans will not add "oomph" to tackles and hits the way they do in the regular season. Second efforts by offensive players is also rare. Anyone thinking these count as games or its no big deal to slide two over to regular season has no clue how the pre-season works and has bought into NFL owners salesmanship the last decade.

I do care about player safety as a whole not individually. Within the confines of the sport and its history degrees of violence are expected and I love it. But adding games , protecting only marquee players ,and adding rules with no semblance of competitive balance bothers me. Thats done with only $$ in mind not safety.
More $$ on equipment research with both sides contributing , dressing all 53 men on the roster , eliminating contact from OTAs and any offseason camps or , and providing health coverage to vets seem like no brainers to me.