NFL Week 16 -- Football overload

Cowboys literally ripped that win away from the Bucs — what would have been the game-winning touchdown earlier, and then the game-clinching strip. Two of the best defensive plays you'll see this season.

 

That gack job by the Bucs makes Commanders-Falcons a yuuuuuge game next week.

 

Seeing the way some of these playoff teams are staggering into the playoffs, not to mention the teams that gave up a week ago makes me think the NFL would be much better off adding two teams (which would add 17 games a year) than expanding to 18 games a season (which would add......16 games a season). The quality of play has already degraded to the point where adding two teams would probably hurt the product less than adding another week. You are already seeing players take a week off with injuries they would play through in the past for rest.

 

Real People agree.

 

I was going to make a Browns joke after Otto Graham and Frank Ryan, but even they had Sipe and Kosar.

 

You will likely see both, with the promise of another 106 union jobs (not including taxi squad) as the carrot to get the players to agree to an 18th game.

 

The Cowboys had a brutal two-game stretch right after Dak went down but they've been surprisingly plucky since then. Parsons is Parsons, and the secondary looks like it did at times last year. Rush has been steady. The McCarthy pitchfork crowd has quieted significantly, because it's clear those guys like playing for him. As a Washington fan, I want absolutely no part of a Week 18 at Dallas game that has real meaning, because those guys aren't rolling over for anyone right now. Commanders better act like they have to beat Atlanta to get in, because the Bucs get Carolina and the Saints at home to close and win the wild-card tiebreaker with Washington if both finish 10-7.

 

Perfect symmetry of 32 teams and 16 games lasted far longer than I thought it would.
Is it better to go to 36 teams and 18 games per season per team? Or is that too much expansion at once?
Domestic markets are tapped out. Mexico City? Kicker paradise. It’s 40% higher in altitude than Denver.

 

The player market--especially the QB market--is tapped out. My goodness can you imagine what Cooper Rush would get next spring if he had four extra teams vying for his services? There's not enough players for 36 teams. So expansion to 36 teams is absolutely coming.

 

Sid Luckman is still No. 2 for the Bears all-time passing yards … and he died 26 years ago.