Owners discuss spring exhibitions

[Brando]

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- NFL owners discussed playing spring preseason games as part of a possible expansion of the regular-season schedule.

No action was taken by the owners as they wrapped up their meetings on Wednesday. No change in the regular-season schedule is expected for 2009.

"I think the focus was on how do we prepare for the season," commissioner Roger Goodell said. "Football readiness was probably the No. 1 issue that everyone wanted to do further analysis on. We still have a lot more work to do on the analysis."

Spring games, normally an intrasquad contest, have become commonplace in college football. Some top programs have capacity crowds for the game.

"It was raised by a few clubs," Goodell said. "More in the context of what the colleges do."

The NFL spring games could be in the form of a scrimmage or matchup between two teams.

Goodell said that prevailing feeling was that if the schedule is expanded, it should go to 18 games, not 17.

Should the expanded regular season get approved, one or two preseason games would be eliminated.

Pittsburgh chairman Dan Rooney believes a new regular season schedule with 17 or 18 games could come about in the next few years. He also continues to oppose expanding the playoff field if a new schedule model is approved.

"I'm totally against that," Rooney said. "We have enough games now in the playoffs."

Goodell said a playoff expansion review will be part of the overall evaluation.

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No Thanks. 4 preseason games are enough and if you are a good team and make the playoffs(like Rooney stated) it's more than enough as it is now. This is a hard hitting sport where injuries are popping up more than ever. I think some owners are looking at making more money.

[powerfuldragon]

unless they're gonna play flag football in a concerted attempt at avoiding major injury, i say this idea is stupid.

[Hervoyel]

16 real games is as many as I think anyone could reasonably ask the players to endure. I'm actually for dropping two preseason games entirely. Two practice games and 16 real ones would be easier on the guys who make this all happen IMO.

[powerfuldragon]

how long has the master of the obvious avatar been back? i missed it.

[Hervoyel]

It's been a while. When your team is 0-4 one tends to repeat a lot of obvious stuff so I thought it fitting.

[Speedy]

Why would the owners want to mess with how they have it now? I mean they each get full price for 2 games that mean nothing. What's better than that?

I could go for dropping a couple of pre-season games, but leave everything else like it is.

I think the playoffs are perfect the way they have it. It works. The two best teams in each conference get byes, as it should be. The other division winners play home games, as it should be. And the wild card teams playing road games, as it should be.

The Giants played 20 games last year. Now they want to make it an 18 game schedule, and possibly add more playoff games? Now you're talking a wild card team playing 23, 24 games if they go all the way. That's ridiculous. This game is too demanding on the body for that many games.