New York Jets safety Jamal Adams sees the benefits of longer schedule despite concerns raised by other players.
Count Jamal Adams as a player who will likely approve the NFL’s proposed collective bargaining agreement, which includes increasing the regular season schedule from 16 to 17 games per team and expanding the playoff field to seven teams per conference under a new collective bargaining agreement.
After ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the proposal on Wednesday night, Adams tweeted his support with a simple explanation.
“More Regular Season Games + More Playoff Games = More money for the league & players, everybody wins,” Adams tweeted Wednesday after the news broke.
He later deleted the tweet because, as he explained, he “didn’t feel like dealing with random people that have no idea what’s going on in my mentions.” Adams didn’t waver from his stance of support on the schedule, though, despite 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman imploring him to reconsider his stance.
“I still think it would be dope to add an extra game,” Adams tweeted Thursday. “But I do understand there’s more to it!”
How would the players make more money? According to the proposed CBA, players would reportedly earn 48 percent of the revenue generated by the league every year, which is more than the 47 percent they earned over the length of the old CBA from 2011. That 48 percent bumps up to 48.5 percent if the 17-game schedule is ratified. That would mean, according to NFL Network, players’ earnings would increase from $2.5 billion to $3 billion with a 16-game season and to over $5 billion with a 17-game season. In addition, players who signed a contract based on a 16-game schedule would earn an extra game check capped at $250,000, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
There are underlying issues with the proposal which Sherman, who sits on the executive committee of the NFL Players Association, alluded to in his response tweet to Adams. The obvious problem revolves around player safety. Players already wear down over the course of a 16-game schedule and another game would increase the possibility of injury. Sherman explained his opposition to an elongated schedule before Super Bowl LIV, when he claimed the league owners cared more about money than player safety.
“So that’s the part that’s really concerning for us as a union and us as players,” he said, “because they think that players have a price tag on their health and I don’t think we’re in the same ballpark in that regard.”
Adams might be in the minority of players who want a longer schedule. 49ers wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders and Chargers offensive lineman Russell Okung are among other players who publicly agreed with Sherman’s concerns with regards to player health. Sanders actually played 17 games in 2019 after the Broncos traded him to the 49ers before their bye week and after the 49ers’ and didn’t seem too thrilled with doing that every year.
“If the NFL wants to change the season to 17 games they should ask me, and I say no,” Sanders said before the 2019 playoffs. “Because my body was hurting.”
Okung, who missed the 2019 season after suffering a pulmonary embolism, told ESPN he also opposed a longer schedule because of player safety concerns.
“Health and safety is a priority to us,” he said. “We need to protect the future of our league.”
The NFLPA will vote on the new CBA on Friday. If the proposal passes with a two-thirds majority, every NFL player will vote on the CBA, at which point only a simple majority is needed to approve. If the new CBA passes, the new schedule wouldn’t go into effect until 2021.
