Goodell defends expanded playoffs

NFL commissioner Rodger Goodell is changing America's Game.

He insists that these changes are making the game of professional football better.

A Super Bowl played in the cold. Stingier rules against hard hits by defenders. Player fines bigger than LeVon Kirkland's waistline. Extended TV contracts that now includes weekly Thursday night football games. All of this has occurred under Goodell's watch.

Extended extra point tries, extending the NFL regular season by two games and adding two additional playoff teams to the NFL's postseason are the newest changes that have been proposed by the Goodell. While an extra playoff team will not be added to the NFL's postseason in 2014, the league will experiment with extra point tries from the 15-yard-line this preseason.

Some have expressed concern that adding more playoff teams will dilute the competition within the postseason. Goodell recently combated that thought and defended his push for two extra playoff squads.

It's apparent that Goodell is not a subscriber to the "if it's not broke, don't fix it," adage with all of these changes within the NFL. Sunday Night Football was the second most watched TV show in America in 2012-13. Last season, 205 million fans watched an NFL game.All this populairty for a sport that withstood a documentary bashing the league for failing to protect their athletes and retirees suing the league for failure to properly finance their sustained injuries.

It appears that the popularity of the NFL can withstand just about anything.

Personally, I always thought that the NFL had the best postseason. Half the league wasn't making the playoffs like that of the NHL and NBA's postseason but it wasn't as elite as the eight team playoff system that the MLB has. Even with this addition, the league will still allow less than half of the league to participate in the postseason.

Like the extended extra point, I feel like the postseason expansion will happen soon. While I'm not crazy about it, I feel like it is a much lesser of two evils between adding two playoff teams and extending the NFL season by two games.