Football fans don’t dare miss an National Football League regular season game unless dire circumstances force them to give up their tickets or vacate their sofas on Sunday afternoons. Yet, they’ll throw out every excuse in the book to avoid watching preseason games.

The unwillingness to watch these boring exhibition games is understandable. With nothing on the line and marquee players – and second and third-stringers – on the sidelines, the preseason is a waste of time for everyone who isn’t trying to make a NFL roster.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell agrees. At the NFL owners meeting in Atlanta today, Goodell said the league will consider shortening the preseason to three games and – you might want to sit down, football fans – adding a 17th game to the league’s regular season schedule (the extra game, a ninth home game, would rotate between the two conferences each year to keep it fair).

Adding an extra game would obviously give the league’s 32 teams even more revenue. If the owners sign off on the extra game, it would have to be approved by the NFL Players Association, which NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw said would be highly unlikely. A fan can dream, though, right?

The news was overshadowed by the owners opting out of their labor agreement with the players’ union, meaning the league could operate without a salary cap in 2010 and lock t the players out in 2011.

A lockout nearly destroyed the National Hockey League a few years back, and though the NFL is a lot more stable and popular, a similar lockout would not be pretty. It will be interesting to see how long the regular season will be in 2011: 16 games, 17 games or no games at all.

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