Columnist Dean Juipe: Four is two too many exhibitions

Dean Juipe

Monday, Aug. 26, 2002 | 9:18 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

It's not like there isn't a solution to this problem of too many National Football League exhibition games. In fact, there's one so perfect it would increase the league's revenues and fan base without any detrimental effect.

I've offered this up before and I'll offer it up again: If the NFL would simply drop two exhibition games per team and go to an 18-game regular season, the world would be a better place.

But given that a league representative failed to call and congratulate me on this remarkable idea when I first presented it a couple of years ago, I can hardly expect a favorable review this time. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that subtracting two worthless games and replacing them with two of substance is the way to go and that, in time, such a notion will actually come to pass.

We've got one more week of exhibition games -- or "preseason" games in NFLspeak -- before league play opens Sept. 8. And no matter what the Major League Baseball warring factions decide to do about the Friday strike deadline, the NFL season can't get here too soon.

Sports books and bars with satellite feeds have already been inundated with football fans intent on watching NFL exhibitions, meaningless as they may be. Some of you undoubtedly have seen the games on at the expense of baseball games that actually count in the standings, so solid is the NFL's hold in Las Vegas.

But imagine slicing the exhibition schedule in half, as is logical and doable. If college teams can get by without a single practice game, the pros ought to be able to access their personnel and get things in order within two.

Besides, the results of exhibition games have long been little more than miscellaneous trivia. Last season, for example, Minnesota had the best preseason record (4-0) but went 5-11 in the regular season and cost its coach his job; Miami, conversely, had the worst record (1-4) but finished 11-5 and made the playoffs.

The results so far this year are just as unrevealing: St. Louis is 0-3, as is Buffalo, and Pittsburgh and Oakland are 1-2. Yet at least one of those teams is apt to be in the next Super Bowl, and it's equally likely Washington (4-0), Atlanta (3-0) and the New York Jets (3-0) will not.

That the NFL manages to extract money from its fans to witness these games reflects not only the broad appeal of pro football but the league's coercive ways. Those who want season tickets are forced to buy tickets to the exhibitions as well.

Why not just take the regular season to 18 games? Pro football has evolved from teams playing uneven schedules in the 1920s to a uniform 12-game schedule beginning in 1936, to a 14-game schedule starting in 1961 and to a 16-game schedule in 1978. Eighteen is hardly out of the question, given that statistical comparisons between eras is moot and that the players' union could be appeased with that most basic of incentives: increased salaries.

Notice, too, that I've gotten this far with whining or badgering the league about the onslaught of injuries that each of its teams has seemingly suffered in these August scrums. But there's nothing worse than getting hurt in a throwaway game, as dozens of current players can attest.

Do the math: It only makes sense to drop two duds when two potential thrillers are right there on standby.