NFL Should Move to 18 Games to Allow For a New Playoff System

There has been a lot of talk lately about how the switch to an 18-game NFL schedule is inevitable. 

I am a person who is on the side of the fence that doesn’t want this because of player safety and how the game could be compromised with injuries to star players later in the year.

Granted there are always be injury issues every year and that is just part of the game that football will never be able to get away from.

The first thing that would need to happen is to expand the rosters from 53 to 75. There have been some rumors the rosters would be expanded out to 70, but I don’t think that is good enough.

I think teams should be allowed to have one more player per position both on offense and defense. If they choose to stock up more on one side of the ball, that is their choice. The ability to be able to stock an extra body per position would be paramount.

Recently I have been harping that the NFL needs to switch to a conference playoff system and eliminate any possibility that a 7-9 team from a very poor division could ever make the playoffs.

In another article I wrote this week, Why No NFC West Team Deserves To Make The Playoffs, I am pretty worried that a 7-9 team from this division will make the playoffs and then get a home playoff game, only to lose by 30.

No one wants to see that, and here is my simple explanation as to why an 18-game schedule could solve that.

If the NFL would eliminate interconference games and allow the NFC to just play the NFC and the AFC to just play the AFC, then we could move to a conference playoff system where the top six teams make it, no matter if you are a division winner. If you are the sixth-best team by record, then you are in.

The schedule would break down very simply and would save the schedule makers a ton of time.

Each team would play their divisional teams twice each as normal and then would proceed to play the rest of the conference in a yearly rotating home-road. Also each team would be awarded two off weeks.

I’m not a fan of the term bye week. If you aren’t playing during that week, you are off.

This would allow the conference’s best to settle it out in the regular season and jockey for position throughout the entire season.

Every game would mean playoff positioning and not that it needs it, but it would give the Super Bowl a little bit more intrigue. The AFC and NFC would not meet until the first Sunday in February.

We could spend the entire year speculating who is the best conference.

If the NFL did decide to go with the 18-game format, this would be the best possible scenario and would take the NFL to another step in popularity.