FanPost

NFL expansion to 36 teams, 17-game regular season, 396 draft choices and 60-man rosters, plus radical realignment and pre-season and post-season contraction.

I want the NFL to add franchises in Los Angeles, Portland, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City, 4 by expansion and the other by relocating the Jaguars from Jacksonville. I am just not sure that Florida is a 3-team market, although I do believe that Texas is, while California should definitely have more than 3 teams. Regarding international expansion, I do believe that it will happen eventually, just not yet. I can envision 6 franchises in Europe, 1 in Mexico City and maybe even a future CFL-NFL merger.

Rosters should be expanded to 60 players, with 50 active per game, plus 15-man practice squads and an off-season limit of 100. The annual college draft should be expanded from 256 to 396 total selections, including 10 rounds + 36 compensatory picks. Instead of holding expansion drafts of veteran castoffs, I prefer adding 1 expansion team per season and giving them 75 total selections, with each established team getting 2 or 3 fewer choices during those years. This way expansion teams can start from scratch and be built the right way.

Realigning into 6 divisions of 6 teams each while doing away with conferences altogether seems like a great idea to me. All divisions should be based on geography as opposed to antiquated traditional rivalries. Dallas in the East? Indianapolis in the South? Atlanta in the West from 1967-2001? Chicago/Saint Louis/Phoenix/Arizona in the East from 1950-2001? Baltimore in the West from 1953-'69? Carolina in the West from 1995-2001? Who's hair-brained ideas were those? Bert Bell, Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue?

Atlantic Division: Baltimore, New England, New York Giants and Jets, Philadelphia and Washington.

East Division: Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.

South Division: Atlanta, Carolina, Miami, New Orleans, Tampa Bay and Tennessee.

North Division: Chicago, Green Bay, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oklahoma City and Saint Louis.

West Division: Arizona, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Salt Lake City and San Antonio.

Pacific Division: los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

Each division would play one other division per season, alternated every 5 years. A 17th regular season game per team would be played at neutral sites ( Europe? ) against a random opponent. I like this idea because it almost guarantees no more 8-8 teams, unless there are ties of course. Each team would also play 1 pre-season game at a neutral site ( including the Hall of Fame Game ) in addition to 1 at home and 1 on the road. The playoffs should be contracted to 10 teams so that every division winner gets a 1st round bye. Since conferences have been eliminated, any 2 teams, even from the same division such as the Raiders and Chargers, could meet in the Super Bowl.