NFL Week 11 - The Open Date

I strayed off my weekly on field analysis and decided to address a few things about the NFL schedule and rosters.

The Open Date
For starters, it’s not a bye. A bye is when a team earns or is seeded in a tournament or playoff in such a place that they don’t compete in a round. When the top two seeds don’t play in the NFL’s first round of playoffs, that is a bye. A team scheduled off during the season is an open date.

Which brings me to my main point, the nature of the open date is inherently wrong. I think it builds in a late season advantage for some teams to rest up while other teams get the open date as early as the fourth week.

I’d like to see the league either do away with it entirely or make it more equitable. The season is seventeen weeks long to allow for the open week. May as well let half the teams take the week off in week nine and the other half in week ten. That seems fair when compared to the current system.

The Expanded Season
Roger Goodell and the ownership seem hell bent on expanding the season to 18 games. Several issues need to be addressed before this happens. TV contracts will need be adjusted for the extra games, the schedule formula reworked, rosters expanded and player pay also increased for two more game checks.

With the looming potential work stoppage, I personally don’t see how all that will get done in addition to negotiating a new CBA.

As it stands, I’d like to see the NFL expand the rosters for the 16 game season. Teams are allowed to carry 53 players with 46 plus a 3rd quarterback on game day. Teams also carry a practice squad but those players aren’t exclusive to the team. Any team may sign a practice squad player to the 53 man roster.

Instead, the NFL should revamp the current system to allow all 53 players active on game day. No more scratches. The owners pay the players a game day check anyway so why not make the eligible to play? Another route the league could take is to keep the 46 game day roster and expand the designated emergency players. Designate one emergency player at quarterback, running back, offensive lineman, defensive lineman, linebacker, defensive back and receiver. If a player leaves the game and is replaced by the emergency player, then the original player isn’t allowed to return to the game.

The Injured Reserve
While I’m pontificating about the rosters, the owners may as well change up the injured reserve rules. In the past, teams could designate a player on injured reserve and reactivate him during the season. The rule changed to prevent teams from stocking players on injured reserve even though healthy. Now it’s an all or nothing list. A player goes on the list and doesn’t count against the roster limit or he sits out hurt and counts against the roster.

The NFL should take a page from Major League Baseball. They could alter the injured reserve rule for varying periods of time. A player could go on injured reserve for either a 4, 6 or 12 week period or out for the year. Of course there should be limits on the number of players on injured reserve. Maybe two or three players max on the eligible to return list to keep teams from stockpiling players. I’d also suggest limiting the number of times a team can use the injured reserve in a season. Finally, along the lines of the PUP list, once the injury time is up, a team must decide to activate the player or he is out for the season.