Sports Roundup by Various Sports Writers

A 17- or 18-game NFL season would be a football junkie's exotic dream drug. It would be raining America's reigning sport. Football, more football, as far as the eye can see. Football to the right of them, football to the left of them, football volleying and thundering from Labor Day to Presidents Day.

It could be great, but as much as I'd like to see the game played every minute of every day, I'm not so sure. I'm from Missouri on this one, waiting to be shown how it will work without players taking too many ambulance rides to hospitals.

Football is hard, man. I don't know if they can make it harder and maintain a semblance of the excellence they're having serious difficulty maintaining now. As it is, with a 16-game schedule, the game hardly is played well in all 32 NFL venues.

This could pile misery upon misery, or maybe we'd enjoy the Detroit Lions going 0-18. And it could almost ensure that those insufferable Dolphins who celebrate Miami's 1972 unbeaten season every year sip champagne into eternity.

On the good side, two games would be taken away from the exhibition season, and season-ticket holders forced to buy into glorified practices would be off the hook.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is in favor of this and rightly acknowledges that, with the offseason programs teams go through now, four exhibition games no longer are necessary. More real games would please the networks, which would mean more dough, and CBS and Fox have agreed to flexible schedules should this be adopted.

The owners, with much to consider on this one, tabled schedule expansion in May at meetings in Florida, although ratification is expected in October. The players and their union see a problem because they still would be playing 20 games, and the owners might not think more real games should mean more real money to the players.

"We have to look at this from every different perspective because you want to know the intended consequences and the unintended consequences," Goodell said. "Whenever you're dealing with the quality of the game, that's a key factor."

It's hard to see them doing this without two bye weeks and roster expansion. Labor would seriously enter into it, and right now new union chief DeMaurice Smith is up to his forehead working on a new collective bargaining agreement. The owners dropped out of the current CBA in 2008.

The contract expires after a 2010 season that will not have a salary cap.

"The players understand the cost to their bodies," Smith said. "The players understand how tough it is to get through a regular season. They understand how hard it is to try to stand up on Monday morning. They understand why they need a day off on Tuesday. Their families understand when they get out of football and they have arthritis before they're 40."

Think of it this way. Starters don't play full preseason games, but many still get hurt. They won't be sitting out two extra real games. San Diego Chargers tailback LaDainian Tomlinson, as an example, doesn't play a snap in August.

"It's not up to me, but if it happens, it happens," said center Nick Hardwick, the Chargers' union player rep. "It would be tough; it's a grind as it is. What is the compound effect on the body?"

Coaches love the exhibition season because it gives them a chance to evaluate the new players against vets on the bubble. Yet Chargers coach Norv Turner isn't totally against additional games.

"It could be a positive for veteran players," Turner said. "Rookies would have fewer opportunities to beat guys out. I imagine they'd have to reconsider roster sizes and adjust IR (injured reserve) rules. The fans will enjoy it, that's for sure. With two more games, statistics show more teams would be involved in playoff races.

"Right now, when a player goes on IR he's there for the entire season. They'd have to look into adjusting that. Do we put a guy on IR or not? There would have to be a system where we can bring guys back.

"The preseason does give you extra looks at young players without putting the entire team at risk. We've had success with undrafted rookie free agents (Pro Bowlers Antonio Gates, Kris Dielman). It would make it harder for them to make it. I'd probably be in favor of it. I believe you can make it work, but you have to consider other things to help players out."

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers isn't quite sure.

"I'd rather have fewer exhibition games and two more weeks of camp without the two extra (real) games," he said. "We'd have to have a different mind-set. We have about all we can handle now. When you get into those later weeks and into January, it's a grind.

"Just show me when and where and I'll show up, but there are guys now who can barely walk when the season's over."

The players are the game. That's what bothers me and what has to concern those who have trouble seeing over the dollar signs who did not leave body parts on the field.

Nick Canepa writes about sports for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Contact him at nick.canepa@uniontrib.com.

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