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Here are a couple of straws that show the way the wind is blowing. The AFL Players Association wants an extra bye to help them through a long and wearing season (see The Players' Revolt in another thread).
In the middle of winter we are apt to forget the sights of February football: exhausted players stuck in front of huge fans (I'm sometimes stuck behind huge fans but that's another issue), heat-stressed players with ice vests, and so on. The intensity of the game seems to rise steadily. While the sub on the bench may have reduced the injury rate, the pace of the game is as high as or higher than it has ever been. To be playing it in February is lunacy.
It is time to rethink the fixture. We now have enough teams for a H&A competition of 17 weeks where all teams play each other once - the only way that is both genuinely fair way and truly national. I don't regard a split into different "conferences" as good for the game. Add in the finals and the preseason competition and we have football for more than half the year; the players have it for longer still. And we can start the whole process in March.
The main obstacle to commonsense is greed. I was going to say money, but the problem is not money, rather the attitude to it. It would mean accepting something less than $1.2 billion, but there would still be plenty for everyone. We will adjust, and before long we will wonder why we didn't do it sooner.
It makes sense. But that doesn't mean it will happen.
In the middle of winter we are apt to forget the sights of February football: exhausted players stuck in front of huge fans (I'm sometimes stuck behind huge fans but that's another issue), heat-stressed players with ice vests, and so on. The intensity of the game seems to rise steadily. While the sub on the bench may have reduced the injury rate, the pace of the game is as high as or higher than it has ever been. To be playing it in February is lunacy.
It is time to rethink the fixture. We now have enough teams for a H&A competition of 17 weeks where all teams play each other once - the only way that is both genuinely fair way and truly national. I don't regard a split into different "conferences" as good for the game. Add in the finals and the preseason competition and we have football for more than half the year; the players have it for longer still. And we can start the whole process in March.
The main obstacle to commonsense is greed. I was going to say money, but the problem is not money, rather the attitude to it. It would mean accepting something less than $1.2 billion, but there would still be plenty for everyone. We will adjust, and before long we will wonder why we didn't do it sooner.
It makes sense. But that doesn't mean it will happen.
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