NFL Proposes New Offseason Schedule
By Keith Myers
With the complete team representation in Indianapolis for the NFL Combine, the league is using the opportunity to aggressively make some changes. This time player safety is not the focus. It’s the off-season.
The idea here is to spread out the off-season events to keep people talking about football all year. Here’s how the new schedule would look:
March: Scouting Combine
April: Free Agency Period
May: NFL Draft
June: Mini-Camps and Organized Team Activities
July: Training Camps Begin
Clearly the NFL is trying to avoid the “dead period” between early May and late July that the current schedule has. It will also make each of these events “bigger” media events since they are further apart. Plus, the NFL doesn’t do anything unless it will help it make money, and making these events more marketable obviously won’t hurt in that regard.
As someone who covers the league, I love the idea. The “dead period” can be brutal for me and my staff since we don’t shut our site down during that time like most do. Providing us with more to write about year-round is certainly nothing I’m going to complain about.
The one concern I’ve heard is that fans will eventually get emotionally fatigued. By not giving fans a proper break, they will eventually get “worn out” and won’t care as much.
I’m not sure I buy that reasoning. What are your thoughts on the idea?