Just a little over three years after the NFL instituted a 17-game regular season schedule, there’s been plenty of talk about adding an 18th game in the future.
And this week, commissioner Roger Goodell said an 18th game is a “possibility” and he understands fans want more football.
The NFL Players Association, however, feels differently.
Executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. told reporters on Wednesday from New Orleans that the stance of the players is quite different, and that they don’t prefer adding more game action to the regular season.
“No one wants to play an 18th game. No one,” Howell said. “Seventeen games is already, for many of the guys, too long. Seventeen games is also so lengthy that you’re still dealing with injuries going into the next season. So, there are a variety of issues that hang off of the length of the season before any formal negotiations.”
The current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2030 season, and changes — including tweaks to the current CBA — would need to be approved by both the league and players.
Goodell’s comments in the lead-up to Super Bowl 2025 echo things he said in the spring about the possibility of adding an 18th game.
He said then that a potential change would mean less preseason football, which has already been reduced from four games to three.
“We would do it in the context of reducing the number of preseason games. We think that’s a good trade: less preseason games and more regular-season games,” Goodell said in May, adding that the league would continue to work with the players’ association.
Howell said Wednesday that any discussions the two sides have had have been informal and there are plenty of things that need to be hashed out, including safety concerns, international travel and bye weeks.
“No matter what Roger says, you open up that CBA and we’re going to get into field surfaces, we’re going to get into safety, we’re going to get into a lot of things,” Howell said.
The NFL first expanded the schedule in 1978 from 14 to 16 games, the number that held until 2021.
