Roscoe Conkling, a post-Civil War Republican politician who became the only man in American history to be offered an appointment to the Supreme Court twice (once as chief justice) and turn it down twice, famously said, "When I want something, I want it dreadfully."
Guess he didn't want to be on the high court at all. But the NFL owners want the 18-game schedule — and they want it dreadfully.
How dreadfully?
The owners have expressed openness to allowing players to use "medical" marijuana (and we all know what a joke that is) for the purposes of "pain management," in exchange for the NFLPA dropping its opposition to taking two games from the exhibition — oops, I mean preseason — and adding them to the regular season, resulting in the same 2 and 18 format that the CFL has observed successfully and without complaints from anyone since 1986. This was reported by former Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle and self-styled "cannabis activist" Eugene Monroe in no less a buttoned-down source of sports news than Sports Illustrated on Thursday.
(Also on Thursday, the Washington Post disclosed that the owners discussed expanding the playoff field from the current 12 teams to 14 at their spring meeting two weeks ago, which was not divulged during coverage of the meeting itself. And Forbes magazine piggybacked onto this story).
While the collective bargaining agreement does not expire until after the 2020 season, there is nothing in either the Ten Commandments or the United States Constitution that would prohibit the owners and players from tearing up the existing agreement and proceeding with any changes they might agree to a year early.
And what might those changes be?
Beyond the obvious — a 12.5% across-the-board increase in all player salaries, 18 being 12.5% more than 16 (and in addition to being able to quote Scripture, the devil can also do math: 20 — the number of weeks there would be in a regular season with 18 games, assuming that each team receives two bye weeks instead of one, as is the case in the CFL, although that is necessary in the CFL due to the CFL having an odd number of teams — is 17.6% more than 17, the current number of regular season weeks, so the owners still come out ahead) — proposals such as the total abolition of OTAs could be on the table, this spring's casualty list therein having included 49ers free safety Jimmie Ward, who broke his collarbone, and Bills tight end Tyler Kroft, who broke his foot; and didn't everyone do just fine before OTAs existed?
Of course, for the sake of keeping up appearances, the owners will require any player who wants to use pot to get a doctor to sign off on it — but that will prove to be about as "problematic" as a thoroughbred trainer getting a veterinarian to sign off on permitting one of his horses to race with Lasix, which as near as makes no difference to 100% of all thoroughbreds in the United States do in fact race with.
Poor Ricky Williams. He came along 20 years too soon.
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