The NFL's 17-Game Season Will Lead to More Injuries, Upend Record Book

The NFL is elated for its historic 2021 season, but not everyone should be so excited.

There's less than a week until the new NFL season starts, with the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers hosting the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, and 2021 will be the first season where every team will play 17 games in 18 weeks.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is touting the expanded slate from 16 games in 17 weeks, the standard for 30 of the past 31 seasons, as a win for everyone. Fans will be happy because they get an extra week of the regular season plus one fewer meaningless preseason game. Players should be happy because they get an extra week off between training camp and Week 1, and the NFL shifted bye weeks later in the season, when the banged-up participants will need them most.

The owners and league, naturally, should be the happiest. An enhanced slate means another week to host international games—the NFL announced every team will play abroad at least once every eight years—and more gate and television revenue, since regular-season games are immensely more valuable. The results bore out too as the league sold its TV rights for more than $100 billion over 11 years in March.

The NFL wants everyone to believe this was a joint effort between the owners and NFL Players Association, who had to approve any changes to the regular season. Goodell credited the players when the deal, along with the newly agreed-upon collective-bargaining agreement, was announced in March.

"This is a monumental moment in NFL history," Goodell said at the time. "The CBA with the players, and recently completed media agreements provide the foundation for us to enhance the quality of the NFL experience for our fans, and one of the benefits of playing 17 regular-season games is the ability for us to continue to grow our game around the world."

But the reality is the league has long wanted 17-game seasons and would've had them years ago if not for opposition from the union. Plus even when the players finally agreed to the enhanced schedule it only came via a 51–49 margin.

The players know more regular-season games mean more injuries. They were holding out for another bye week, which wasn't unprecedented—the NFL experimented with an 18-week season with two byes in 1993, before reverting to the 17-week slate henceforth. Another bye week would've been prudent for a league that's been badgered by negative publicity about post-career injuries and specifically CTE.

New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara, who called it "dumb as hell," and defensive lineman Cam Jordan were among the most outspoken against the enhanced slate.

Those sentiments came out before Kamara and Jordan discovered the Saints' Week 6 bye this season, which means if they are going to win the Super Bowl they'll likely have to play 15 weeks in a row and 16 games in 17 weeks—since only the top seed in the AFC and NFC will get a postseason bye for the second straight season.

That seems inhumane.

Player contracts will also remain the same, meaning the each competitor won't get extra pay for the extra week until he negotiates a new deal. Players may be able to pull more money eventually as an extra game will also lead to better bonuses due to inflated stats.

Yet therein lies another issue with the expanded slate: It will upend the league's record books. Another game means the 1,000-yard rushing plateau gets further diluted. The 5,000-passing season, a once unheard of feat that has been topped 11 times since 2008, will undoubtedly become standard in pass-happy pro football.

The goal of 19-0, which has been the unreachable mountain, is now 20-0, a rounder yet even harder peak to scale.

Plus more games mean more late-season games between terrible teams in terrible weather in front of paltry crowds of indifferent fans who are just trying to get their money's worth while also paying for an extra week of season tickets.

So a 17-game schedule may seem great on paper, and the NFL will try to convince us all that it'll be exceptional, but whether that is the case remains to be seen.