Stretch the NFL season?

Would an 18-game regular season be good for the NFL?

"I don't think so," Vikings special teams leader Heath Farwell said.

Me neither.

More than 200 players already are on injured reserve and many more are temporarily sidelined or hobbled with bodies breaking down and brains being concussed. And we still have weeks left before the postseason begins.

The argument to expand the schedule doesn't make sense when viewed from this side of the season. It's obvious the quality of play would diminish and more star players would never even make it to the postseason.

Yet the NFL seems more determined than ever to expand the regular season by as many as two games while reducing the preseason by the same number of games. The tradeoff hardly seems equal considering the limited number of reps that starters get in the preseason.

"It's not as easy as cutting out two preseason games and adding two regular-season games," said guard Steve Hutchinson, the Vikings' union representative. "You're increasing the regular season by an eighth, so I don't know. There would be a lot that the league and the [NFL Players Association] would have to talk about before that can happen."

So the march toward an 18-game regular season continues. The Associated Press did several interviews league-wide recently and found a number of concerns about quality of play, injuries, compensation and expanding the 53-man rosters. Broncos defensive end Vonnie Holliday might have had the best reaction.

"Even when you're talking about more compensation," he said, "when is enough enough?"

I talked to a number of Vikings this week and found the same kinds of concerns.

Tight end Visanthe Shiancoe turned his thumbs down and made a buzzer noise as if I had just lost on "Jeopardy."

"Don't like it," he said. "The season is long enough already. Eighteen games? That's too long."

"I wouldn't love it because I know what my body feels like after 16 games," he said. "Before I jumped on board, I'd want to make sure the league made it up to us in training camp. I could see coaches arguing that they would need more time to evaluate players and make us report the second week of July."

The league argues that little would change except two more games would count in the standings.

"It's the same number of games and presumably the same number of injuries," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the Associated Press. "Now it may be different people getting injured with more regular-season games, but we're looking at how to mitigate that in terms of larger rosters, potentially, different type of offseason work."

I don't buy it. Two more regular-season games equals two more chances to see someone's third-string quarterback start a critical game. I got enough of that watching the Steelers' Dennis Dixon last week.

"I don't get it," Farwell said. "The NFL is the most-watched sport. It's perfect the way it is. Why would you change anything? It seems crazy to me."

And then there's Cardinals All-Pro receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr., the Minnesota native who spoke to the Twin Cities media this week in advance of Sunday's game between the Vikings and Cardinals.

"I don't care," he said. "I love to play the game. As long as the salary cap keeps going up and they compensate us for it, I'll play 40 games."

Shhh, Larry. Don't give the league any ideas.