How a 17-game NFL season will affect player stats
An extra NFL game every season sounds amazing at face value and worth any price. However, one of the costs of adding another regular-season game to the NFL schedule is how it affects player stats.
Here's a look at four ways that stats will be affected by the change to the 17-game NFL regular season.
4 ways NFL stats will be different going forward
#1 - Yardage and touchdown single-season records will fall
Every player in the NFL will now have an extra game to break single-season records. Five years from now, most NFL single-season records will likely have new holders.
Patrick Mahomes threw for 50 touchdowns in 2018. Peyton Manning set a new single-season record with 55 in 2013. If Mahomes had another game that season, he could have caught or passed Peyton Manning on the leaderboard. It is only a matter of time until this happens to every single-season record.
#2 - 1,000 yards not special anymore
Before 2021, one of the main markers of a great season for running backs and wide receivers was to eclipse 1,000 rushing or receiving yards. The goal for each running back and receiver was to reach that figure, and the goal was a tough one.
However, 1000 yards will not have the same ring to it that it did in 2020 as more NFL players will be able to reach the landmark since they have more time to earn it. The bar will likely be around 1,100 yards, which is not quite as clean a statistic.
#3 - The death of the .500 record
Former Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Rams head coach Jeff Fisher's name is synonymous with the 8-8 record. But with the NFL now having an odd number of games, it will be highly unlikely for any team to finish with the same number of wins and losses.
The only way a team could win as many games as they lose is if they have a tie. A final record of 8-8-1 will be an extremely rare occurrence in the NFL and almost an accomplishment to be proud of in a twisted way if a team ends the season with that record.
#4 - All-time greats will slip down the leaderboard
Adding another game to the schedule gives younger players a better shot at surpassing the achievements of the all-time greats.
For example, there are only three players who have reached over 16,000 yards in their careers. Now, with an extra game every season, the extra two-thirds of a season will allow players to overtake the current records, something they may not have been capable of before.
Put simply, today's players will have more time in their careers to surpass the greats. Whether that clouds our perception of them in the future, or the context sticks to those numbers, remains to be seen.