Orlando Sentinel: NFL needs to remain global

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NFL needs to remain global




September 2 Orlando Sentinel
columnist Chris Harry


"The long NFL season starts this week.


We could be just a year away from a longer one.


Although negotiations toward a new labor agreement won't commence until the union replaces Gene Upshaw -- funeral services for the late Hall of Famer and NFLPA executive director are today in Washington -- one of the hot topics that will come up is the push to trade preseason games for more regular-season games.


Who wouldn't be for that?


Owners would increase revenue from TV contracts that already pay them $3.7 billion per season. Players would figure to get two more paychecks (and fewer injuries in meaningless games). Fans would get more legitimate football for their viewing and ticket-buying pleasure.


The number being kicked around is an 18-game schedule. Not to date myself, but I watched 12-game seasons as a kid and (as far as I can remember) welcomed the 14- and 16-game formats.


Eighteen seems like too many.


How about a 17-game regular season, with three preseason games, keeping to the following guidelines:


* Add a second bye week for each team, and stretch the season from 17 to 19 weeks. That'll give the owners two more weeks of regular-season games on TV. Right now, they're averaging $217.6 million per week from their partners at CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN and DirectTV. Another half-billion or so should keep them happy.


* Put that 17th game at neutral-site venues, preceded by a bye week. The league could use it to expand its international goals -- regular-season games have been played in Mexico City and London, with Toronto on the '08 slate -- in Europe, Asia and Australia. Other games could be staged in markets that don't have NFL games, such as Oklahoma, Alabama, New Mexico, Oregon, Nebraska and Kentucky.


* The league did a masterful job at balancing the schedule to accommodate expansion in 2002, so folding a 17th game into the rotating formula would blow that up. Instead, pair up one NFC team with an AFC -- with emphasis on region, where possible -- and declare them annual foes (eventually, the rotation system would mean playing that team twice, but who cares; do it or alter it). Example: San Francisco vs. Oakland; Atlanta vs. Jacksonville; Dallas vs. Houston; Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia. Baltimore vs. Washington.

These games could be neutral-site games. How 'bout Tampa Bay vs. Miami at the renovated Citrus Bowl?


Owners voted in May to opt out of the two-year-old Collective Bargaining Agreement. They'll be looking for ways to recoup the cost of new stadiums, ridiculous rookie salaries and the 60 percent revenue that goes to players.
Here's a plan.


I'll take one-half of one percent.


Cincy making news
Lots of news came out of the Cincinnati Bengals' preseason. On Saturday, former Pro Bowlers Rudi Johnson and Willie Anderson were released. There was diva WR Chad Johnson officially changing his name to "Ocho Cinco" and QB Carson Palmer (right) breaking his nose in an exhibition game. But that paled in comparison to the disgusting re-signing of WR Chris Henry, who has been suspended for off-field issues (five arrests in three NFL seasons, including one in Orlando) for 15 games of his 50-game NFL career. And that doesn't count the first four of this season. Henry, cut by the team after that fifth arrest last spring, was re-signed due to injuries at the wideout core. He got a veteran's minimum contract. Or as Paul Daugherty of The Cincinnati Enquirer put it: "All it cost [the Bengals] was their soul.""
 
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