Should The NFL Expand Rosters?
America’s most violent sport requires the ablest bodies and yet the NFL strictly prohibits how many players each team can carry on their active roster.
Is that number (53) too few?
This is the question posed by Tim Froberg of Post-Crescent Media.
“The NFL is the roughest, toughest pro sport of them all and can sometimes resemble a human demolition derby,” Froberg said. “Roster relief wouldn’t come at an exorbitant cost and would only help teams in their weekly war of attrition.”
That “war of attrition” included 1,300 injuries during the 2013–2014 season, according to Think Progress. Two weeks into the 2015 season 15 percent of all NFL players had suffered an injury.
Instead of expanding rosters and increasing salary caps, the NFL has elected to make several rule changes intended to increase player safety.
In March, NFL owners approved a proposition to allow independent spotters the ability to call a medical timeout when determined necessary and banned chop blocks and peel blocks by running backs outside the tackle box, according to the Los Angeles Times.
While proactive measures like gameplay rule changes are important to the future safety of NFL players, the NFL should also consider expanding rosters to help teams get through the gauntlet that is an NFL season.
Expanding rosters by as few as two players could help alleviate the pressure to return to play quickly. And as Froberg points out, “tight salary caps would have to be tweaked, but the creation of two more jobs per team wouldn’t cause a billion-dollar business to crumble and would give teams greater flexibility in managing injury-ravaged rosters.”
Froberg also calls for a “temporary injured list” that would act much like a disabled list in Major League Baseball.
“If a player has an injury that will sideline him say, three or four weeks, why does he have to be carried on the active roster?” Froberg asks.
It’s a valid question. Why penalize a player and team for being injured? Instead, the NFL should allow players to be replaced temporarily.
So why not? It’s time to expand NFL rosters.
