The Pittsburgh Steelers, along with the Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs, were subjected to a grueling three games in 11 days in order to play on Christmas Day, and Steelers S DeShon Elliott isn’t particularly happy with the schedule. Speaking to the media today, Elliott said the NFL didn’t do the Steelers any favors with their schedule and that with 17-game seasons, players deserve an extra bye week.
“With the NFL doing us over with the three games in 11 days we kind of needed that,” Elliott said of the mini break the Steelers just had via Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Twitter. They didn’t throw us a bone. That was something we deserved. We deserve an extra bye. We should get an extra bye with as many games as they want us to play.”
With the NFL moving from a 16- to 17-game schedule in 2021, the league did away with the fourth preseason game but didn’t add an extra bye week in-season. While that might be a consideration if the league moves to 18 games, which feels inevitable in the coming years, it’s not something it will likely adopt in the current 17-game format.
The issue of player safety is one that will continue to come up, though, especially with the NFL looking to make games on Christmas Day a thing. While Christmas will fall on a Thursday in 2025, which is a day the NFL has a game with Thursday Night Football, it’s still going to lead to short weeks for multiple teams if the league wants to have multiple Christmas Day games again. With teams also playing on Saturdays late in the season, the number of short weeks add up and players like Elliott may feel as though they don’t have enough time to properly prepare or get their body right before their next game.
Dehon Elliott was injured and missed two of Pittsburgh’s three games during its 11-day sprint, and the lack of rehab time due to the quick turnaround may have contributed to that. The Steelers played on Saturday against the Baltimore Ravens after a Sunday loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, which was the first game that Elliott missed.
If the NFL wants to continue cramming games into non-traditional game days, the calls for an extra bye week or more rest will become more prevalent. But adding an extra week in the season and giving teams an extra bye week likely isn’t something that will pad the pockets of the league office, so it’s not going to come any time soon unless the NFLPA can negotiate it when the 18-game schedule inevitably happens.
