One of the main rules debates in the NFL is whether or not the season should expand to eighteen games from the current sixteen. It’s a matter that keeps coming back up even if an eighteen game season isn’t necessarily something that fans have asked for, but rather seems to be a potential move to allow teams to make more money from the extra two games. It seems that this offseason the issue has come up once again, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Beaton, and this time, it could have a negative impact on the New York Giants if the proposed change does end up happening.
That’s because the proposal would have a sixteen game limit for all players during an eighteen game season, meaning that all players, even star ones, would have to have two weeks off from being on the field – It’s a move that would add more unpredictable results at the expense of the quality of every team, but the team’s that would be hit the hardest by such a move would be ones such as the New York Giants which aren’t especially deep in every area.
The Giants are still working on building up depth in areas like the offensive and defensive lines and while limiting players to sixteen games would help with the safety issues of playing two more games per season, it would make things much harder on rebuilding teams that don’t have the same quality at backup as they do at their starting positions.
However, while this would inevitably hurt the Giants, it would definitely pose some interesting questions for them. One of those main questions would be what to do at quarterback for the two games of the season that Eli Manning would be unable to play in. Many fans want to see Daniel Jones in action early on, but with this proposed rule change, the Giants wouldn’t have an option but to give their new quarterback a chance – unless someone else unseats Jones for the backup spot.
The Giants would also have to go two games per season without their star running back Saquon Barkley, not because of injury but because of restrictions on playing time. It’s unknown just what strategy they would use for the two games Barkley would be missing, but it’s interesting to think about nonetheless.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like this idea would be accepted any time soon. It’s very far from the usual norm and it would be the kind of drastic change that the NFL doesn’t usually decide to just make. It doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not a rather interesting scenario to think about.