New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees Opposes 18-Game NFL Schedule

New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees stated his staunch opposition to the proposed 18-game regular season schedule Friday night saying that it will "take years off guy's careers and probably years off their life too."

Brees made the comment following the New Orleans Saints 36-21 victory over the San Diego Chargers at the Louisiana Superdome. The idea of two added regular season games beginning in 2012 seems to be gaining rapid momentum as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL owners worked towards its implementation earlier in the month in Atlanta.

While your average beer belly in the cheap seats has an unquenchable thirst for two more regular season games...More, More, More!!!!...16 games ain't enough, Rocky!...it is the players who will endure the additional physical punishment resulting from an extended regular season schedule.

Says Brees, "Do you know the toll that that's going to take on guys bodies?"

"The season being 16 games is already very, very long," Brees told reporters. "It's not just a matter of adding two more games...you got to take a look at how does that affect salary. How does that affect medical benefits post career. How does that affect off-season. How does that affect preseason.

"So, when you talk about adding games, you've got to talk about those four things and say 'what kind of benefit are the players getting in order for (18 games) to happen," says Brees.  

Brees suggested the idea is not a popular one with NFL players he has spoken with.

"You ask these linemen and everybody else how their bodies feel at the end of the season. It takes them months to get back healthy again," says Brees. "So you talk about adding two more meaningful games. That's a lot of pounding on the body. That takes years off guys' careers and probably takes years off their life too."

On Friday night, free agent long-shot Chris Ivory likely made the team with a dazzling 76-yard catch-and-run that likely brought Joe Beerbelly to his feet. This came in the Saints third preseason game.

So, if you shorten the pre-season to two games does Ivory make the final cut? Peyton Manning shared a similar concern saying that many current Colts free agents would not be around today without the benefit of four pre-season games.

Vinnie Iyer of Sporting News cited two additional concerns regarding an 18-game regular season:

"More meaningless games. Last season, the Indianapolis Colts, San Diego Chargers and Saints all won their divisions by at least four games. A top team such as Indianapolis could rest players for an entire month or a bad team could be just playing out a long string in a lost season," writes Iyer.  

"Then you're looking back at the same issue you had in the preseason," said former Steelers coach Bill Cowher, now a CBS analyst."

Iyer adds "More Isn't Necessarily Better.  The NFL has moved along just fine with a 16-game schedule for 32 years, and now with 32 teams the schedule has a nice even balance. Even though games are played in only six months, free agency, the draft, spring practices, mini-camps and training camp already make it a virtual year-round sport. "The talent" is what makes the sport great, and putting it more at risk isn't worth it."

Nevertheless, the NFL owners and Joe Beerbelly subscribe to the Gordon Gekko philosophy of life:

"Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, (for more regular season games)knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper (and the National Football League), but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much."

The health of the players be damned.