If an 18-game regular season schedule facilitates the crap football we saw last weekend in the NFL, then as a fan I want nothing to do with an 18-game schedule.
It all started last Thursday night when Brett Favre (who shockingly wasn’t on the same page with Percy Harvin after skipping all of training camp) used the Vikings’ opener with the Saints as a personal practice. Outside of the touchdown drive right before halftime, Brett used virtually the entire game to shake off the rust that had been accumulating since January.
The Saints defense is good, but they’re not as good as what Favre made them out to be last week.
I understand that offenses aren’t going to be firing on all cylinders in the first week of the season. But what we saw last week out of teams like the Vikings, Cowboys, Jets, Falcons, 49ers, Chargers and even the Saints for that matter was akin to watching two drunken fathers try to assemble a kid’s tricycle in the dark. And we’re talking about teams that are supposed to be contenders this year.
If the league subtracted two preseason games and added two regular season games, then coaches would probably limit starters’ playing time to only a couple of series during the first preseason game in effort to avoid injuries. That means the offenses would spend the first two or three regular season games trying to get in sync and therefore, produce the same lackluster football we saw in Week 1 this year.
If the players are going to put themselves even more at risk for injury by adding two regular season games and the first couple of weeks are going to be garbage hour, then I’ll pass. Keep the four preseason games and hopefully by Week 2 the action will be more crisp and exciting. As much as I would love to see another two weeks of football that counts in the win-loss column, I couldn’t stand watching any game where Favre skips passes to receivers for four quarters – especially in what should have been a thrilling opener to start the season.
