The 17th Game

NFL owners have wanted a 17th game for years.  Pretty much ever since Roger Goddell became commissioner, it was really a matter of when they'd finally wear the players down and get them to agree to it.  Now the players have.  So, starting in 2021, each team will play the most awkward number of games possible.  Figuring out how to schedule that 17th game is the next challenge.

Does the NFL need a 17th game?  Absolutely not!  Does an even number make more sense?  Of course!  And I do think 17 games is simply a step on the way to 18, which is where they'll eventually settle (you'd have to assume at some point they'll get tired of alternating an extra home game with an extra road game every other year).  But until they do, we're stuck with 17 and trying to figure out the math that'll go with it (they might need a full year just for that).

Part of what makes the NFL's current schedule formula so great is how simple and logical it is.  That's why, other than a few minor tweaks involving the West Coast trips, it's been essentially the same since the Texans entered the league in 2002.  Four divisions of four teams, everything divided evenly.  And it's all done according to the formula.  You know 14 of your 16 games before the season even starts, with the other two determined by your place the previous season.  It really is almost perfect.  So, of course, the owners have to take something that works perfectly fine and screw it up!

There's really no easy way to add a 17th game to the schedule.  It's one random game for every team, so it'll definitely require some creativity.  And it'll almost certainly have to be a fifth interconference game, which either makes it easier or harder.

Some people would like to see the NFL do something similar to what MLB does with interleague play and have natural rivals play each other every season.  But that wouldn't work for a few reasons.  For one, there's reason to mess with the current rotation, so they'll already face their "natural" rival every fourth year when their division comes up, and they wouldn't want teams playing a home-and-home with an interconference opponent.

Even more than that, though, there are very few "natural" rivalries out there.  You've obviously got Giants-Jets and Rams-Chargers, the two matchups where both teams share a stadium, but, outside of a few others, it's really a stretch to find some "natural" rivalries.  Now that the Raiders are in Las Vegas, the 49ers don't have a partner.  That means Cowboys-Texans, Ravens-Redskins, Steelers-Eagles and Dolphins-Bucs are really the only other ones that make any sense.  Sure, you could justify a Bears-Colts or a Browns-Lions, but there would be too many "rivalries" that seem completely random and forced.

Setting up permanent interconference rivals would also unfairly benefit/penalize some teams.  The Steelers and Ravens are a perfect example.  Philadelphia's good.  Washington isn't.  Thus, who has the advantage in the AFC North simply because of who their permanent interconference opponent is?  Likewise, who gets stuck playing the Patriots or Chiefs every year?

One interesting proposal I saw simply lined the teams up 1-16 in each conference and had you play the team that finished in your corresponding place the previous season.  But this would create some of the same issues.  Mainly, you could already be scheduled to play each other based on the division rotation.  You could also end up playing the same team over and over that way.  And one of the reasons they went to the current schedule was because they didn't want teams playing interconference foes more frequently than opponents in their own conference.

The idea of basing it off the previous year's standings does have merit, though.  The NFL is all about parity, and I'm sure they'd want to maintain it with the 17th game.  Have the good teams play the good teams, which TV wants, the fans want and the league wants.  (Although, as that same article pointed out, under the current format, the schedule is actually more balanced than people think.  You play four games against a first-place team, four against a team that finished second, four against a third-place team, and four against a fourth-place team.)

My plan is based on that idea, but not nearly as complicated.  Keep the current schedule formula in place.  There's no reason not to, especially since it accounts for 16 of your 17 games.  More importantly, it already has a rotation of interconference opponents in place.  That's the key to my formula.

Last season's interconference matchups were AFC East-NFC East, AFC North-NFC West, AFC South-NFC South, AFC West-NFC North.  Assuming there is a season this year, the matchups are AFC East-NFC West, AFC North-NFC East, AFC South-NFC North, AFC West-NFC South.

For the sake of this exercise, we'll add a 17th game to this year's schedule.  The 16 games based on the current formula won't change.  As for the 17th, that's where the division you played last season comes in.  Because your 17th game is against the interconference team you played last year that finished in your corresponding place.  Using the AFC East as the example, the Patriots would play the Eagles, the Bills would play the Cowboys, the Jets would play the Giants and the Dolphins would play the Redskins in their extra game.

Assuming they don't tweak the formula too radically, the AFC East is scheduled to play the NFC South in 2021.  So, they'd all play the Saints, Falcons, Panthers, Bucs and one team (according to place) from the NFC West next season.  In 2022, they'd play all four NFC North teams and one NFC South team.  In 2023, all four NFC East, one NFC North.  In 2024, all four NFC West, one NFC East.  Then back to the beginning in 2025.

This also makes it easy to determine who gets the extra home game.  The only fair way to do it would be to give the entire AFC the extra home game one year and the entire NFC the next year (you can't have two teams fighting for a playoff berth where one played nine home games and the other played eight, especially now that only the No. 1 seed in each conference will get a first-round bye).

That could easily be incorporated into the formula.  It's an eight-year cycle (corresponding with the rest of the schedule formula).  The AFC gets the extra home game in the first, third, sixth and eighth years.  The NFC gets the extra home game in the second, fourth, fifth and seventh.  (You can't simply alternate years since then you'd have the same home team every time one division plays another, so you'd have to go back-to-back somewhere in the cycle.)

As for when the 17th game is scheduled, the NFL really only has two choices.  They either move the Super Bowl to the second Sunday in February, which I'm not sure the networks or other sports leagues would be too keen on.  Or, more likely (and much more reasonably), they go back to playing on Labor Day weekend.  Yes, that could mean the season ends up starting in August.  But that's still preferable to the mid-February Super Bowl.  Especially since that's when the fourth preseason game (that they're eliminating) was played, meaning it won't be too much of a change for the players.