Posted on: Wednesday, September 19, 2001

Pro football
NFL will play full 16-game schedule

Advertiser News Services

The NFL has decided to play a full regular-season schedule of 16 games by rescheduling contests postponed last weekend, but that could come with historic repercussions.

The league is considering the unprecedented move of pushing back the date of Super Bowl XXXVI or moving the game to another site in order to keep its postseason system intact with 12 playoff berths.

"We recognize that it would be difficult to move the Super Bowl, but at this point we want to look at all the possibilities," league spokesman Greg Aiello said. "The goal is to preserve our normal playoff format. We're in a brainstorming mode, open to all ideas."

The league has rescheduled games halted last weekend because of the terrorist attacks for the weekend of Jan. 5-7. But because its calendar doesn't include the customary off week between the conference championship games and the NFL title game, it is backed into the prospect of staging its first February Super Bowl.

The game currently is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2002, in New Orleans.

If the playoff formula is altered, just eight teams would qualify for postseason.

"We continue to work on keeping six division winners, six wild cards and our entire postseason format intact," said commissioner Paul Tagliabue. "Several options have been presented to us in recent days that would help us accomplish that. If we cannot resolve our entire postseason lineup in a satisfactory fashion, we then will go to a system of six division winners and two wild-card teams for this season only."

Tagliabue said members of the league's competition committee voted unanimously to keep the 16-game schedule, and a sampling of coaches agreed.

"This would be the best of both worlds. If they can keep the 16-game schedule and the six wild cards, then everybody's happy. It's just back to business," said coach Mike Sherman of Green Bay, one of many teams whose playoff chances would be hurt badly if the NFL cut back on wild cards.

"I'd hate to disrupt the playoffs," Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "I'm sure they will come up with an answer for it. They understand the importance of the playoffs."

A key factor in pushing back the Super Bowl: hotel space.

The league has had discussions with the National Automobile Dealers Association, due in New Orleans the week after the Super Bowl, about altering its dates to help accommodate a Super Bowl switch.

If the Super Bowl is moved to Feb. 3, the Pro Bowl, also scheduled for that day, would be played without players from Super Bowl teams or moved back a week.

"Anything we do, the situation will have some negatives," Aiello said. "But we do have the luxury of time right now, even though we'd like to decide as soon as possible."

The 16-game season appeared to be a certainty soon after Tagliabue announced last Thursday that last week's games were off because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

One reason is financial. If the league had played 15 games, 15 teams would have played seven home games instead of eight, missing out on one lucrative gate. And the league would owe the networks $40 million to $60 million for the wild-card games that would not be played if the alternate scenarios don't work out.

Another was practical. San Diego was scheduled off last week. So the Chargers would have ended the season having played 16 games while the others would have played 15.

And a third seemed to be that most players and coaches wanted a full schedule.

But the players and coaches also wanted a full playoff schedule. If options can't be worked out, however, they won't get that.

"Fewer playoff teams is basically going to take the playoffs out of a lot of teams' reach," said Wayne Gandy of Pittsburgh, which must play in the AFC Central with Baltimore, Tennessee and Jacksonville.

"By December, maybe even November, guys are going to get down on themselves because they're going to realize only four teams are going to make the playoffs and, in the AFC, there are a lot of good teams. It's going to be a challenge for everybody."