As most of you know, every team in the National Football League plays 16 games per season. Each game is played once a week, usually on a Sunday. Until recently, the football season lasted 16 weeks, not counting the play offs. One day, the National Football League, with possible influence from the television networks, decided it was time to generate more television revenue, so the League added one more week to the football schedule.
You’re probably wondering how this is possible without scheduling another game for each football team. Well, the additional week on the schedule is called a “bye week”. This means that each team has one week off during the regular season. The problem is that all of the bye weeks don’t fall during the same week. Some teams have their bye week early in the season, others have it in mid season, and still other teams have it later in the season. This guarantees 17 weeks of football without every team necessarily playing every week.
I find this rather unfair. Being that each football team has a different bye week, they have different ways to plan based on the time of the season. This means that some teams have advantages over others. Why should each team plan differently? They should all be given a fair chance by doing the same planning at the same time.
Here’s what the National Football league should have done in order to make things a lot less complicated. In a 17-week schedule, week 9 is half way through. Why not have all the teams have their bye weeks on week 9? At the same time, the pro bowl could be scheduled during that week. That way, every team has the same set of circumstances to deal with, and there will be a moneymaking football event during week 9 in the form of the pro bowl. Furthermore, if the pro bowl was played in the middle of the season, then none of the star football players who would normally make it to the super bowl would excuse themselves from the pro bowl if the super bowl isn’t played the following week. The other professional sports leagues have their all-star games in mid season, so why doesn’t the National Football League do it? I see absolutely nothing wrong with this solution. It is simple, fair, and right.
