Posted by Andy Benoit

Phil Simms made an excellent point during the Texans-Cowboys game Saturday night. For fans, the general thinking is that players don’t play hard during the preseason. Simms said players actually play harder during the preseason – and he wasn’t just referring to guys who are trying to make the team. Simms argues that because players are their freshest and fittest in the preseason, the game is naturally faster and more violent.

In Simms’ mind, the preseason is not only about working the tactical kinks out – it’s about gradually preparing your body for the punishment of live action come September. That’s why the former Super Bowl MVP thinks an 18-game schedule (which would mean a two-game preseason) is a poor idea.

“I think it’s a game where you slowly indoctrinate yourself in to the hitting and all the punishment that comes with it,” Simms said. “So it’s a little bit the first (preseason) game; a little more and a little more. You don’t go into boxing, Hey my first professional fight I’m taking on Mike Tyson. I’m ready for the real thing. You don’t do that. You slowly work your way into it. I think it’s going to hurt the players if they change it drastically.”

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What hasn’t received a lot of press in the intensifying debate over the NFL’s “enhanced season” (i.e. 18-game schedule) is what it means for records. Single-season records will basically cease to exist. Jim Brown, arguably the greatest running back of all time, said to FanHouse.com, "Ultimately, I don't think the NFL cares about records in a pure way, because you look at when they went from 12 to 14 games in a season, that was major, but they never addressed that properly with an official position as to what it meant [for records].”

The NFL should consider adopting a mathematical formula that calculates single-season records in a fashion that takes games played into consideration. In other words, for example, instead of focusing on something like “total rushing yards in a season”, the focus needs to shift to “average rushing yards per game over the course of a season.” Something needs to be done to keep players like Brown in the historical conversations.

And it’s not just about records. Brown gives another example:

"I'll put it to you this way: Once they went from 12 to 14 games (after Brown's fourth NFL season), I never thought of rushing for 1,000 yards in a season as being anything special, but they kept talking about 1,000-yard rushers, 1,000-yards rushers," Brown said. "I could never understand that kind of talk, because that was based on somebody doing that in a 12-game season, so logically that didn't make sense."

--Andy Benoit

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