Bleeding 'em dry

Say this about your venture capitalists, your daddy's trust-fund moguls, your hedge-fund destroyers of worlds: None of 'em ever met a last dime they didn't want to squeeze until all the juice was out of it.

Which brings us, naturally, to the Nash-unal FOOT-ball League, whose standing motto seems to be "We can always get more players. That's why we have a draft every year."

And so of course the owners want to add a 17th game to an already over-long season, because, well, MORE MONEY. Their brutal, chew-up-the-resources season already stretches from August until past Christmas, but, hey, look how much we're paying these guys. Gotta get some return on the investment, right?

Anyone who's ever plunged foolishly into the quagmire that is fantasy football knows what's wrong with that, because every week your quarterback goes on the shelf or your running back or two wide receivers or a tight end. The game eats its own like few others, which will happen when it involves ridiculously large human beings running into each other at the speed of light. The carnage is so bad these days more and more players are used up by the time they're 30, or decide they're tired of being used up and quit by that time.

Not that this matters a lick to the rich guys. They can always get more players, remember?

Problem is, the current ones have run their cost-benefit models, and a 17th game doesn't compute for them. And the owners will play hell at the bargaining table convincing them otherwise.

"When I talk to the guys, I don't think many people want to do it," defensive end and Jacksonville player rep Calais Campbell told ESPN this week. "Really, you talk to guys and I don't think anybody wants to do it. It's going to be very, very tough."

Translation: The owners better be prepared to give something up, and it better be a meaningful something. Eliminate the last preseason game, perhaps. Hell, eliminate all the preseason games, which are nothing but a vestige of that gone time when players used them to play themselves into shape.

That hasn't been the case for a long time, not in an era when there is no meaningful offseason. You've got your minicamps now and your OTAs and your supplemental mini-camps, and then training camp. No one spends his offseason anymore selling insurance or beer distributorships and spending the rest of his time eating anything that moves.

 Rod Woodson, for instance, once told me he took all of two weeks off at the end of the season, then jumped right back into his workout program. Of course, Woodson was famous during his playing days for being the fittest man in the NFL. But the motivation is universal: Gotta protect the assets.

Odd that this would come up this week, considering it's the week of the Pro Bowl, the most glaring example of superfluous risk in the entire NFL empire.  Campbell's comments originated in Orlando, where the game is being played today for reasons known only to the Shield. It's not like anyone cares, or that the players, no dummies, won't approach it as if it's the Tag You're It Bowl, the Don't Hurt Me Bowl or the Hey, Watch The Knee Bowl.

Of course, people will still watch. Which means the Shield will make money. Which means the most glaring example of superfluous risk will keep happening every year.

And the 17th game?

It's superfluous, too. Not that that matters.