Roger Goodell still dangling 18 game season out there
By Mike Dyce
Apr 25, 2013; New York, NY, USA; NFL commissioner Roger Goodell speaks before the 2013 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports
It’s been going on for years, Roger Goodell saying an 18 game season. But something happened that could actually give some credibility to this idea that keeps getting thrown around. The NFL has altered its calendar by moving the draft from April to May and the NFL Scouting Combine from February to March.
At the surface of it all it seems like the NFL could simply want to extend their footprint through out the calendar year. May is an incredibly slow month for the NFL in terms of news and relevance.
Or, the NFL is seriously trying to get an 18 game schedule and they’re making room for extra games by pushing back offseason activities.
“[The options] are all on the table,” Goodell said at a press conference at the quarterly ownership meetings in Boston. “As I have said before, I think the structure of the season is something that we consistently reevaluate. I have been quite open about [indicating that] we have to address the quality of the preseason. I hear from fans consistently that they want to make every NFL event more valuable. They see the preseason as being less valuable to them because they don’t see the best players and the games do not count. We have to address that, whether we are looking at 18 [regular-season games] and two [preseason games] or 16-and-two and expanded playoffs. They are all on the table and things we are going to evaluate.”
Goodell also went on to say that the calendar shift for the draft is due in part to Radio City Music Hall’s desire to put on a Easter show, much like their Christmas show.
“Next year, Radio City Music Hall, which is the host of our draft, is bringing on a spring event, which I think the focus is on Easter. It extends to a much later date and interferes with the date when we normally hold the draft.”: