I’m sitting here in my Salt Lake City suburb living room flipping between the HD broadcasts of the Bills-Jets game and the Bucs-Falcons game. I have a vested interest in both games because I have Lee Evans of the Bills and Roddy White of the Falcons on my fantasy team. Although this is round 1 of our playoff season and I have a first-round bye, by virtue of my 11-3 regular season record, I still want to see my players perform well heading into my league semis next week. And I start thinking: Didn’t the season just barely start a few weeks ago? Sheesh. What a short season. Goes by in a flash.

Seems that, in comparison to the three other major sports, the NFL season is the shortest. I got up from my comfy perch and - ah who am I kidding, my laptop is right here in front of me on the couch - and did a little research. This year (2008) the season started on September 4th - another one of those stupid Thursday games (more on that later) - a game which saw the Giants defeat the Redskins 16-7. The regular season ends on December 28. Doing the math, the regular season ends 116 days after it started. Ok, well that’s about 4 months. Seems pretty short in comparison with the other sports though. The Baseball season seems to drag on for years after its roughly April Fools Day commencement. So I says to myself: “Self? How long was this year’s Baseball season?” You’re probably asking yourself too. And Basketball? And Hockey? Glad you asked.

In 2008, the Baseball season officially got underway on March 30. The Nationals edged the Braves, 3-2. I didn’t count the 2 early regular season games in Japan. The last regularly scheduled regular season game was on September 30. Again, I do the math. 185 days.

Basketball, similar story. The ‘08-’09 season started October 28 and will end with a whole host of games on tax day, April 15. The math says that’s 170 days of regular season play. Hockey: October 4 through April 12 equals 191 days.

So, here’s a sorted recap:

1. Football: 116 days
2. Basketball: 170 days
3. Baseball: 185 days
4. Hockey: 191 days

Pre-season and post-season schedules aren’t really a factor here because they last about the same amount of time in all four leagues and, of course, not all teams participate equally.

So, this brings me to my point: How can the Football season be fixed? Because, imho, it needs fixing. The season is too short as I just illustrated. The players are paid too much. It costs too much to attend a game. Players who are injured miss a significant portion of the season when they’re sidelined for only two or three games.

Football can be fixed by extending the season to 23 weeks (161 days) with all 32 teams playing 20 games - 10 home and 10 away. Three times during the season, a team would get a bye week. This is their chance to heal, get some rest and re-charge. If players made the same amount of money for the season as they do now, owners could reduce seat prices by as much as 25%. Even fans in Detroit and Cincinnati would attend more games. Sorry, coudn’t resist though I’m not one to talk on account of my 2-10 Seahawks. Players would still get a majority of the season away from the game to undergo major surgeries to repair their instruments. The playoffs wouldn’t begin to take shape until at least week 14 or 15 compared to week 9 or 10 nowadays. ESPN is already talking playoffs halfway into the schedule! Bah! The pre-season could be reduced to 3 games maximum for all teams, including the Hall of Fame Game. Recently, some teams play as few as three while others play as many as 5.

I know Football is a brutal sport. The off-season needs to be long so players can recover before the next campaign begins. Partially, it’s the player’s fault for not being ready on opening day. Many delay surgeries that could take place sooner after the season ends ensuring enough time to rehab the repairs.

A longer season would benefit the league financially by producing more revenues from TV rights by keeping the product visible to the public longer. It would benefit the fan in two ways. One, it would be cheaper to attend a game. Two, it would create a higher quality of play by giving players more recuperation time during the season thus allowing them to participate in more games.

And now back to the games. It’s halftime. Evans, only 1 catch for 4 yards and White not much better at 38 yards on just 2 catches.

Oh, and about Thursday games: 1 week only. Thanksgiving day. 2 games. That’s it.

I came across this useful hack after being frustrated about some of the low quality videos I was getting on YouTube. To force YouTube to send you a higher resolution video, add this to the URL and hit enter: &fmt=18.

As an example, using the Once trailer I posted in the movies category, the URL to the video is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIpwx5lA5I

Adding the hack, the URL becomes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIpwx5lA5I&fmt=18

This doesn’t work on all videos. It depends on how the video was encoded in the first place. However, YouTube has many high resolution videos that they deliver at slower frame rates to save their bandwidth. This hack simply forces them to deliver a higher quality version.   Notice the link under the video, “Watch this video in lower quality for faster playback.”  Try it the next time you’re viewing videos there.