The Perks of the NFL’s Short Season

By KATHERINE MCDONOUGH ‘19

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite professional sport to watch is football. I live and breathe for the Patriots, and I have not missed a single Patriots game since 2010 (granted, I had to tape some of them, but, you know, still). My favorite days of the year are crisp October Sundays, sitting in front of the TV watching the Pats face off against their latest opponent. I’ve been asked a number of times why I love football so much, and while I think a lot of my love for football is due to the game itself, I also think I love football so much because the NFL has arguably the best professional set-up.

Don’t get me wrong, the NFL is probably the most corrupt professional sports organization (well, except for FIFA, but don’t get me started on them), but the structure of the NFL season results in the most enjoyable professional sport to dedicate oneself to. Every Sunday, I sit down to watch Tom Brady lead the Patriots down the field.

There are only 16 games in the regular season of the NFL, so each game makes some part of the decision if a team makes it to the playoffs or what they are seeded. The small number of games also means that a change in a record matters so much more; the difference between a 10-6 season and a 9-7 season is monumental and most likely playoff-deciding.

Additionally, the small number of games creates a more cohesive league for the fans. Every Sunday, dozens of teams match up against each other to help decide whether or not they will make the playoffs. However, because the season has so few games, the results of other teams matter as much for the Patriots as they would for the teams actually playing. NFL playoffs are kinda weird, where the top two seeds from each conference receive a first round bye. A “bye” is when a team does not have to compete in the first round of playoffs, moving directly to the second round. However, these byes must be given to teams from different divisions, explaining why the Patriots received a first round bye this year despite having a worse record than the Los Angeles Chargers (the Patriots were 11-5 where the Chargers were 12-4). The Chargers and the Kansas City Chiefs, who earned the bye this year, are in the same division, so the Chargers could not receive a bye even if they had a better record than the Patriots. While this division-dependant system worked in our favor this season, the system results in some downsides, such as in 2008, when the Patriots didn’t make the playoffs despite having an 11-5 team, one of only two teams to do so since the league expanded to a 16 game season.

It’s a setup like this that makes football so interesting. Even though I mainly cheer on the Patriots, I care about the results of every other playoff contender because it will ultimately affect whether or not my favorite team makes the playoffs. When December rolls around, I find myself rarely leaving the couch on Sundays, because every game being played in the AFC could have an effect on the seeding of my favorite team.

So while football is my favorite sport for many reasons, the importance of each individual game is major. I find that with baseball, which has a whopping 162 games per season, and hockey and basketball, which both have 82 games in a season, each individual game feels somewhat pointless. I am aware that, especially in Baseball, the result of a series is what mainly matters, not the games. I also realize that hockey seeds the first 12 teams in the playoffs based on their ranking in their division, meaning that divisional games throughout the season have incredible importance on them. The NBA throws this division-dependance out the window, seeding teams solely based on win-loss records within each conference.

While I think the NFL has the superior structure for their season, I would never wish a shortened, 16-game season upon any other sports league. NFL has other reasons for keeping their seasons short, the main one being money (it’s the NFL, so what can we expect), and the other being the safety of the players; for certain positions in football, playing 82 games in a year would somehow be more of a death sentence than the current 16 already is.

I also, simply, like how many games there are. Right now, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, NBA Playoffs, and the beginning of the MLB season are happening at the same time. At any given moment in Boston, I can turn on the TV and there’s probably a game going on. Another beautiful pocket of time, because of these long seasons, is in late October, when the World Series is going on, both the NBA and NHL have just started, and the NFL is amidst their season. If every league had shortened seasons, these two parts of the year wouldn’t be the same. Additionally, none of the other sports are quite fit for a short 16 game season. To put the same amount of weight on an individual hockey game as one could on a football game would completely ignore the complexities and differences of the sports.

While I firmly believe that no other league should shorten their season, there is a definitive loss in the extended seasons of the other leagues. The importance of each game seems almost non-existent, and cohesion throughout the league dissipates.

Milton PaperApril 26, 2019