WASHINGTON -- The medical director for the NFL players' union says there could be about 250,000 additional plays -- and therefore extra collisions and extra injuries -- in the regular season if the league moves to an 18-game schedule.
"It's hard for me, as a physician advising the players, to say, 'You're not going to have more injuries, including concussions, with a quarter of a million more snaps,'" said Dr. Thom Mayer, co-chairman of the Mackey-White Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, which met Tuesday at the union's headquarters.
The league has made increasing the regular-season schedule from 16 to 18 games a centerpiece of its negotiations with the union for a new collective-bargaining agreement. The current CBA expires in March, and the union has said it expects the owners to lock out the players.
"I've been consistent and vehement that if we're going to increase the games -- or even if we're going to keep them the same -- if we have any hope of influencing the frequency (of collisions), it's got to come in practices," Mayer said. "It's got to come in two-a-days. It's got to come in OTAs."
Mayer's committee co-chairman, former NFL player Sean Morey, said that when he discusses the possibility of a longer regular season with current players, "you can just see they're deflated."
"It seems to me that increasing the exposure to head trauma is sort of counterintuitive to addressing this issue," Morey said. "Personally, I feel like you have to consider the law of diminished return, where the quality of the game might diminish because there's a lot of players playing longer; they might be playing injured; star players that might be on the sideline don't get to finish their season."
According to NFL data obtained by The Associated Press, the number of concussions reported this season is up more than 20 percent from 2009 and more than 30 percent from 2008.
The union committee's meeting comes a week after the NFL's head, neck and spine medical committee gathered for two days in New York. Many of the topics covered by the league's panel were addressed by the union, and Mayer said they are working in concert on a number of areas.
"There's a new and very welcome spirit of participation and, as (Commissioner Roger Goodell) often says, transparency," Mayer said. "The two groups understand there is a common purpose."
The union committee spoke about possible updates to the NFL's return-to-play guidelines for when players get concussions; whether there should be changes to the minimum qualifications for each team's independent neurologist; and when those consultants should be seeing players who have head injuries.
Robert Stern, a director of a Boston University center studying brain disease in former athletes, is a member of the union committee and participated in the league panel's meetings last week.
"That's the only way we're going to move forward -- with everyone on the same page," Stern said.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press