The NFLPA wanted no preseason games. The NFL wanted two.
A compromise was one, but the NFLPA wouldn’t give in so we are headed to a summer without preseason football.
The league today offered the union no preseason games, according to multiple reports.
Perhaps the only people disappointed in the news are the undrafted free agents, who now face an even steeper climb to sticking around for the regular season.
The news is a big step toward starting training camp on time.
A report earlier Monday indicated the league had reduced the number of preseason games it wanted to one, which would have happened the third week of the exhibition season. But as NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith explained Friday: It makes no sense to ask players to risk their health and safety for a meaningless game.
“To engage in two games where players would be flying all over the country and then engaging with each other to work, and to do that prior to the season, doesn’t increase the likelihood of starting and finishing the season on time,” Smith said on a Pro Football Writers of America conference call Friday.
No preseason games will allow the league to follow a schedule recommended by a joint committee. That schedule calls for three weeks of strength and conditioning work, 10 days of non-padded practice and 10 days of padded practice over the final two weeks.