NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith says an 18-game season is not on the negotiating table, Jim Trotter of Sports Illustrated reports. "First of all, the league has never presented a formal proposal for 18 games," Smith told SI.com. "But more importantly, it's something that our players don't want. Eighteen games is not in the best interest of our players' safety, so we're not doing it." As Trotter points out, an 18-game season and a rookie wage scale are believed to have been the key sticking points in talks towards a new collective bargaining agreement. Yahoo! Sports reported on Wednesday that the NFL and NFLPA have agreed to a rookie wage scale, though the union has denied that's the case. Source: Mac's Football Blog
Hearing that it still could be introduced as an issue and that the owners are possibly going to offer something on the back end to entice the players a little bit. I don't like it a little.
Well, that's one thing down. But, we still need a new CBA. I don't care if its 16, 17 or 18 games .. I just want an NFL Season. Period.
The first good thing to come out of the negotiations (so far). 18 games would have only given us messed up scheduling, devaluation of regular season games and potentially more "week 17 games". It's better to be craving more than to be saturated.
great for the players sucks for us season ticket holders that have to pay for those horriblle pre-season games. freaking rip off.
