How will the 17th game affect the NFL
Before the 2020 NFL season the NFL and the NFLPA agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement, and within this agreement they agreed to add a 17th game to the season sometime in the future. Now, before the 2021 season, the NFL has announced that they will be adding this 17th game starting this year. So, to celebrate this, we will be going through how the NFL and its procedures will change as an effect of this extra game being added.
In recent weeks the NFL announced these games. Each team will be playing a team from the opposite conference that finished in the same spot in the division as each other. So if an NFC team won their division they’ll be playing an AFC division winner. Makes sense right? From our understanding, this additional game won’t come in the last week of the season, but it is possible that it will play a big part in division races. Another aspect to this, since each team will play a team that finished in the same spot as them last year you may end up with games like San Francisco against the Jets. Both of these teams lost their divisions but for completely different reasons. The 49ers were injury plagued, but still could have made a run for the division considering how competitive the NFC west is, while the Jets came last for a much a different reason, one we won’t dive into. To say the least this rule could potentially give certain teams easy wins in their race to the playoffs, however there will still be many good games that will be fantastic to watch.
Additionally, with the 17th game, we will see records broken that have been held for decades. One could be Peyton Manning’s single season passing touchdown record, with 55, as Patrick Mahomes nearly beat this earlier in his career, one more game could completely change this. Another could be the single season rushing record, currently held by Eric Dickerson with 2,105 yards. Last season Titans’ running back Derrick Henry rushed fro 2,027 yards, proving once again that one more game could definitely break this record. And lastly, single season receiving touchdowns, which is currently held by Randy Moss, as he caught 23 in 2007.
And lastly, from the players perspective, adding an additional game for every player on every team may introduce some load management and resting of players that we haven’t really seen in the NFL. Because playing football takes so much more out of a player’s body, and is more dangerous for them in terms of their health, teams may decide that it would be best to give some of their starters time off midway through the season. As we’ve seen in final weeks, teams have rested their starters, and it could become more popular and more common throughout the season because of this additional game.
To conclude, the 17th game will change the way the NFL works, from the way the season pans out to records being broken and to trends within the league starting that we haven’t really seen before. Yes, the 17th game will give fans the opportunity to see their favorite team one last time before the offseason, but will it really be better for the sport and the game?