Cleveland Browns: Pay for play or playing without pay?
By Joel W. Cade
In sickness and in health
One of the things we all look forward to is vacation. Get away from the grind, the stress, the backstabbing politics and refresh. Vacation does a wonderful job of recharging and refocusing our lives as a whole.
The effects of not taking a vacation can be irritation, anger, frustration and overall low morale. NFL players seem to have a low morale over their expanded work schedule.
Who can blame them? Players spend a great amount of time getting in shape and preparing for the NFL season. They then play an extremely dangerous sport with violent collisions that could permanently damage a player. They are already putting their lives on the line so they can make money to take care of their families.
But with an added game to the schedule, the dangers of playing professional football just increased. Every time a player steps on the field to play, they have a 4.1 percent chance of being injured to the point where they cannot play in the next game.
If we went to work knowing that every time we stepped up to the production line, office computer or blueprint that there was a real possibility we would not be able to report to work the next day, you better believe we would be fighting for more pay, better benefits and more security. You never know when lightening will strike and your career, and all you have ever known, is taken from you.
More games means more injuries. More injuries means more star players injured. More star players injured means more unknown backups playing. More unknown backups playing means the lower quality of players on the field. The lower quality of players on the field means a lower quality product being sold to the fans.
This is not “enhancing” the schedule. It is a bill for false goods.
Torrey Smith already sees this coming:
17 games in the NFL is great for 💰 but they are going to have to adjust practices and what a regular offseason looks like. Dudes were already falling apart playing 16. As a whole this is great but adjustments have to be made.
— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) March 28, 2021
The NFL will have to make wholesale changes to the way teams operate. If they want any chance of maintaining their product, they will need to make new provisions for health and safety of the players.
To enhance something would mean to make it better. Goodell says the extra game will enhance the NFL fan experience. But more games will lead to more injuries thereby reducing the quality of the overall product on the field.
If we wanted to watch bad football, we would bring back Johnny Manziel. But Goodell believes the NFL fan experience needs enhancing.