A Small Step for a Big Change : A New NFL Schedule

Will this NFL draft soon become a staple of May sweeps?

The NFL, NFL players, and NFL fans hate the pre-season. It’s a month of football where the league stars barely play, stadiums are completely empty, and season ticket holders have to pay full price to see the games. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has long been a proponent of expanding the NFL regular season from 16 to 18 games and cutting the pre-season from four to two games. Despite the fact that NFL players are seemingly never going to agree to the extra two games, the NFL may be starting to answer some of the questions of how a new 18-game season would work.

Adam Schefter, of ESPN, tweeted that the NFL is discussing changes to the NFL off-season schedule. The change would move the NFL combine from late February to early March, the start of the league calendar year and free agency from early March to early April, the NFL draft from mid-April to early May, and having all 32 teams start training camp on the same day in late July or early August.

The NFL has obviously denied the connection between the proposed schedule change and the proposed 18-game schedule, but it is hard to not think they are related. If the NFL decides to not move week 1 of the NFL schedule, it would have to move the Super Bowl from the first weekend in February to President’s Day weekend in February and would have leave just a week between the Super Bowl and NFL combine. The NFL is subtly moving the league calendar to answer how an expanded regular season would work without ever mentioning the 18-game schedule.

As Schefter mentioned, the league is doing this for “business” reasons. The proposed shift not only attempts to keep the NFL relevant in 11 of the 12 months of the year with big events, but also attempts to increase the NFL’s television revenues. With the proposed change, the NFL would have the playoffs in January, Super Bowl in February, combine in March, free agency in April, draft in May, training camp in July, pre-season in August, and then the season from September to December. Outside of the month of June the NFL would continue to remain relevant with a big event each month. The NFL draft in May would place the draft in the middle of the May television sweeps, which the league hopes, would increase the advertisement money as well as TV ratings of the draft.

While the NFL’s proposed move seems harmless, it does not factor in where its new proposed schedule would fall into the general sports calendar. Right now, the NFL’s off-season schedule capitalizes on the dead period of other sports seasons. The NFL combine moves from a dead period in February to a dead period in March which is fine, but NFL free agency moves from a dead period in March to early April and will have to compete with MLB Opening Day. The NFL Draft currently competes with the early rounds of the NHL playoffs, the end of the NBA regular season, but the proposed change would move the draft in direct competition with later rounds of the NHL playoffs and the NBA playoffs, as well.

Is the NFL hoping that everyone will continue to care about their draft or free agency over other major sports events? I guess so. The NFL has reached a popularity level where every decision it makes is right. The players may block this new schedule and eventually an 18 game schedule, too.

But if this does pass, it will only increase the popularity of America’s number one sport.  

Mo Money, Joe Problems

Pictured: A man who is about to get paid

Turn on ESPN. What will you see? Besides hearing Spike Lee ask, “Is it the shoes?” or what seems like thousands of NFL analysts debating which CFL team Tim Tebow will play for next season, you’ll likely hear about NFL free-agency, and more specifically, that Baltimore Ravens QB and Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco is about to be one rich man.

And then you continue on with you day — realizing how much class bores you and how you have read every article on ESPN at least once today and need something else to do — without realizing deep down how uncomfortable you are with the news you just heard. You question your uncertainty about the news. Is Joe Flacco really about to become the highest paid QB in the NFL, approximately in the ballpark of 20 million?

If you are one of these people, congratulations, you are not crazy. It makes completely no sense that Joe Flacco should ever be the highest-paid QB because, statistically, he is just not close to being the best QB.

Joe Flacco played out of his mind during the postseason. However, just as we can see with Sabermetrics and baseball, it is misguided to look at the small sample size that is the postseason and confidently declare that Joe Flacco is an elite QB. Taking a look at his career stats, through his five seasons in the league, it becomes clear that Flacco is only an average QB. 

In Joe Flacco’s best season, 2010, he threw for 25 TDs. Back then, his 25 TDs were only good for 10^th best among QBs. This year, 2012, Flacco threw for 22 TDs, and in the passing-dominated league today, his 22 TDs only placed him 17^th in total passing TDs — the bottom half of QBs in the National Football League. In addition, Flacco was 14^th in total passing yards, with 3,817, 19^th in completion percentage, completing only 59.7% of his passes, and 16^thin passing yards per game, having thrown for 239 yds/game. 

You can’t even argue that Joe Flacco threw for so few yards per game and TDs because the Ravens only needed him to be a game-manager, a complement to the Ray Rice’s pinball-type runs. Flacco threw 531 passes, good for 14^th among QBs, while also managing to throw for 10 interceptions. While his interception/thrown passes ratio is certainly impressive, if you compare his stats with elite QBs such as Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, you see that each QB threw fewer interceptions than Flacco while throwing more passes — 637 passes for Brady and 552 for Rodgers respectively.

Let’s take a look at Joe Flacco’s best friend in the entire world and forever his go-to comparison, Matt Ryan. We see that Ryan had significantly more attempts than Flacco with 615, and he also ended up besting Flacco with the highest completion percentage in the league and 5^th in yards and TDs.  Accounting for more of his team’s offense than Flacco, still, Matty Ice only ended up with four more interceptions. While both QBs are good, despite Flacco's recent playoff run, I would rather have Ryan than Flacco.

Furthermore, let's not forget that football is the ultimate team game; you are only as good as your  teammates and your perception of greatness unfairly gets inflated or downsized depending on if you are lucky enough to come away with a victory. Here’s a question: who do you think would have had a better season, the Falcons with Joe Flacco at the helm or the Ravens with Ryan? I think the Ravens with Ryan, no? 

And that leads us to the consequences of giving Joe Flacco an outrageous pay raise. Paying Flacco $20 million, results in the Ravens likely having to let go WR Anquan Boldin and possibly S Ed Reed and LB/DE Paul Krueger, too. Without Boldin, do the Ravens even win the Super Bowl? Do they win if fantasy-zombie Anquan Boldin doesn't completely  burn New England CB replacement Marquise Cole (he was on the Jets for crying out loud) in the 2^nd half of AFC championship game to get to the Super Bowl? Do they win if Boldin doesn't grab Joe Flacco’s prayer jump ball or draw defensive pass interference on final drive of the big game, forcing San Francisco to score a TD instead of a FG? And this is not even including the potential devasting impact on the Ravens’ secondary if Ed Reed departs, and the drop in their run defense without Ray Lewis.

After all I have said in this article about why Joe doesn’t deserve a giant payday, in reality, Smokin Joe is going to be a Raven next year, and he is going to get paid like a king.  Flacco holds all the leverage in the situation. 

Baltimore could have, and should have, extended Flacco during the regular season while he was performing like the quarterback he really is: an average – more like an above-average QB. I would rather have the QB he played against, Colin Kaepernick, over him. And even the three rookie QBs — Wilson, Griffin III, and Luck — too.

Flacco held up the Lombardi Trophy, went to Disney World, and now is about to strike it big time. But does he deserve it?

No, he does not.