Not too long ago, I possessed two opinions that I felt were immutable: one that the overtime rules must be changed to disallow sudden death, and two, that the NFL should reject any inclination it might have to grow the regular season to eighteen games. As someone who values common sense and parity as much as fair play, our league has always stood out to me for its perfect organization and relative lack of controversies, be they related to the officiating or otherwise. While some sports stumble over themselves with bizarrely uneven team distribution (baseball), practically year-long seasons (baseball, basketball, hockey), stubborn refusal of instant replay adoption (baseball), monopolistic franchises (baseball) and colossal load of suck (baseball), the National Football League seems to get it right over and over. That kind of stability can real mellow you out after a twenty minute screaming bout with the car radio about the merits of the BCS and the spectacle in absurdity that was the Armando Galaragga/Jim Joyce blow-up. Current labor crisis notwithstanding, it’s been hard to find a flaw with the mechanisms of pro football since the respective introductions of the revenue sharing, free agency, the salary cap and even divisions. Sudden death overtime was always among the most obvious trouble spots, and I’m pleased to see that we’re well into the process of rectifying that. But there’s always more money to be made, and just as the NCAA nearly sullied their impeccable basketball tournament by opening it up to the likes of Slippery Rock State and the Pac-10′s 7th best team, so too has Roger Goodell and Co. flirted with an 18 game schedule.

Yet in reading some articles that have popped up in the last week, principally John Lopez’s proposal at Sports Illustrated, I’ve come to see that adding new games won’t dilute the NFL: it will improve it from top to bottom. Hell, it may even save us from a lockout next year.

Go down the field!