Imagine Ben Roethlisberger's shoulder, Willie Parker's knee and shoulder, Marvel Smith's back, Heath Miller's ankle, Casey Hampton's groin, Brett Keisel's calf, LaMarr Woodley's calf, Bryant McFadden's arm, Deshea Townsend's hamstring, Ryan Clark's shoulder and any other current Steelers infirmities ... preparing for a 17th regular-season game.

Or an 18th and final regular-season game before the playoffs.

An extra game or two are precisely what NFL owners are mulling, a notion not yet in the proposal stage though filled with enough air that Commissioner Roger Goodell floated such a trial balloon at the end of the league's fall meetings last month.

"The season is long enough," said Hampton, who plays one of the most physically abused positions, nose tackle. "The extra game, it definitely could be hard. We're just trying to get to the end right now."

Hampton's assessment of a potential 18th game for a team with 35 different starters and 17 different starting combinations already this season: "Oh, we'd be hurting, man"

Take a quick poll of the Steelers players and the survey says:

Money matters. "They going to pay us for the extra game?" Hampton asked. Or two extra games? "If they pay us, I'll play."

Mathematics matters. "You add a game, you got to take one away," receiver Hines Ward said. "I know that much." And if the NFL were to add two, something that Goodell said was the owners' prevailing sense, such an extension might translate into a two-game preseason and an 18-game regular season.

Manpower matters. More games should mean ... more jobs? "Of course, you got to add more people," Ward added. "That'll give you a chance to add more guys to the roster; that always could help."

Remember, though, league owners are working without the net of a labor contract in place, having voided the current deal last summer and opened a window through 2009 to negotiate a new agreement. So all this has yet to reach a bargaining table.

"With them opting out as early as they did, they're preparing for the worst, just like we are," said backup quarterback Charlie Batch, one of four ailing Steelers out for the season and their union player representative.

He echoed what was expressed earlier by NFL Players Association acting executive director Richard Berthelsen. "There are two years to try to get something done. Obviously, it has to be discussed [amid negotiations]. It's easier said than done because there are so many different things that come into play."

First of all, imagine the economics. Networks would leap at a couple of extra weeks of prominent programming and advertising dollars. That means the NFL's broadcast rights fees would increase, which would help to increase players' salaries, which even the amateur bean-counter would figure to hike by one/ninth (given two new pay opportunities in an 18-game regular season). The two extra games of mostly sold-out stadia plus the TV-contract boost should help to offset ownership's extra worker costs.

"Teams," backup nose tackle Chris Hoke said, "will make a lot of money off that."

Secondly, imagine the endurance factor. Players might come to camp in late July, play one or two fewer preseason games based on what gets added to the back end, and aim for a late-February Super Bowl?

"Do you go two preseason games and 18 regular-season games, is that too much?" asked Steelers broadcaster Tunch Ilkin, a player rep in his day. "Does the wear and tear begin to take its toll on the players? Because of the OTAs and the camps, these guys are at it year round. I'm just wondering, is it too much? Do we start to see [more] injuries?"

The preseason remains a quandary, so much so that Goodell said owners have tossed around such ideas as a development league, more junior-varsity-like scrimmages, possibly even some type of a spring game.

"When you take away a preseason game," or two, added linebacker James Harrison, "you take away opportunities that guys get in the last preseason game to show what they can do. Especially for guys who are free agents, like I was."

Injuries aren't going anywhere. Except maybe on the rise, what with extra snaps likely leading to more regular-season ailments down the stretch. That, in turn, may well affect the postseason level of play.

On the whole, as Ward said, "It's just a part of football. Just because a couple of guys get hurt, the season's not over -- you got to continue, regardless of how long or short it is. [Star New England quarterback] Tom Brady got hurt, what, the first game of the year? That changed the whole thing. ... So having a long season really doesn't matter, 'cause injuries happen at any time."

The survey result: resignation. The players almost expect it to happen, after haggling.

"The season is long as it is," Ward said. "Whenever that day comes [to add Game 17 and/or 18], you just got to adjust accordingly."

"I think there are pros and cons to both sides," Hoke added. "I don't know, I'm one of those guys, I'm a company man: You tell me what to do, I'll be out there playing, you know? But there are arguments for both sides, there really are."

"I just work here, baby," Harrison concluded. "Until they tell me to vote on it ..."

We'll leave the final word to the ex-player rep in the booth.

"I believe this: Right now, football is the greatest game going," Ilkin said. "And 16 games seems to work just fine. The four preseason games, although they drag a little bit, seem to be just fine. I say, leave well enough alone. I wouldn't change it."