Ever since the NFL added a 17th game to each team's schedule in 2021, speculation has swirled around the league adding what seems to be an inevitable 18th.
Commissioner Roger Goodell has been vigorously campaigning for the change. From the NFL's perspective, the move would make complete sense - or rather, dollars & cents. More meaningful football, more advertising mon, likely more international games...the list goes on.
But from a player perspective, that extra game, with the potential injury risk and the overall impacts to longevity, is not worth it - to put it lightly. As NFL Player Association (NFLPA) Executive Director Lloyd Howell said in February, “No one wants to play an 18th game. No one.”
Now, it seems as if both sides have elected to punt on this particular topic, at least temporarily. According to Washington Post, the NFLPA doesn't plan on entering "formal negotiations" with the league on the topic of 18-game seasons, or any other issues, until the 2026 offseason at the earliest.
There have been at least some informal talks between owners and players on the subject, dating back to last summer. But there are some high hurdles to clear before Goodell's vision becomes reality.
More games equal more player injuries
First, the aforementioned injury concerns. Simply put: extra games mean extra chances for players to get injured. The NFL has made some effort to keep the game count neutral, at least on the surface. When one digs into it though, those efforts have come up flat.
In order to fit the 17th regular season game into the schedule, the league shortened the preseason to three games for every team (plus a fourth game for the two teams in the annual Hall of Fame Game in Canton). Counting against league efforts, though, they also tacked on two extra games in the postseason, and in the process, did away with the bye for each conference's #2 seed.
To go from 17 to 18 regular season games, the league would likely have to cut preseason games again, down to just two games per team. Depending on the player in question, though, this just may not be that attractive.
Already, preseason games are notorious for starters not playing much...or just not playing at all. Instead, they're mostly opportunities for players on the roster bubble to make one final case for why they should be part of the final 53 on their team.
While that may vary from team to team, for the most part, those who are roster locks, and especially presumptive starters, rarely see the field during the preseason. However, they most certainly would be expected to play in any regular season match. Even if a team does rest some starters at the end of the season, there would still be that extra game played before that point.
Who gets a bigger slice of the pie?
Next, player compensation. The salary cap already is rumored to be significantly increasing in a few years due to improvements in the Nielsen rating system. But that's just one piece of the puzzle. An additional game means additional TV (and streaming) revenue, which would have to be negotiated out.
Due to the increased chance of injuries across the league, this is not as simple as just bumping everyone's salary by an additional 1/17th. Instead, players would likely push for more guaranteed money and a higher overall percentage of revenues.
In 2021, then-NFLPA President JC Tretter explained that the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which runs through 2030, guarantees that players receive at least 48% of "AR" - or "All Revenues", including those coming from TV rights, sponsorships, and local revenues.
That 48% increased from the previous CBA's 47% guarantee, and it's a sure bet that the NFLPA would push for an even greater percentage in exchange for putting their bodies at risk and potentially shortening careers even further.
An additional way to alleviate concerns of injuries impacting teams is to increase roster sizes. Still, that may only help so much, considering the league-wide drop off of ability from active rosters to practice squads - especially for positions that already see a dearth of talent. Also, those additional players would dilute the average amount of funds available per-player, offsetting the entire idea of getting more player money to begin with.
Changing the schedule may have unintended consequences
Another topic that would very likely tie into these negotiations, when they finally do kick off formally, would be the inclusion of a second bye week. This might be an area where players can force a true win for themselves. Currently, bye weeks can range anywhere from as early as Week 5 to as late as Week 14 - with the exception of Thanksgiving week.
That wide range of potential bye dates can play havoc with players. Especially for starters and other players with high snap counts, too many games in a row brings on potential for injury, exhaustion, and ultimately, losses that might have been wins otherwise.
A second bye week, if coupled with schedule guarantees to make sure each team has approximately the same amount of time between byes, can help ensure proper mid-season levels of player rest. If they leave those guarantees out, though, there would be little to stop the NFL from giving one team byes in Weeks 5 and 14, while another team takes Weeks 8 and 10 off.
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Of course, an extra bye week and an additional game week means the regular season would extend from 18 to 20 weeks overall. The most obvious choice for the league would be to start the regular season a week earlier, and then extend the Super Bowl out to always be played during President's Day weekend in February. Finally, the nation would get the post-championship holiday everyone has dreamed of.
But that does have other ramifications. Playing games a week earlier in summertime exposes players to potential heat cramps/ heat exhaustion, and not just in the south of the country, either.
Alternately, more teams playing deeper into the winter likewise increases player (and fan) exposure to cold weather. Who can forget the debacle of the Chiefs' homefield win over the Dolphins in the playoffs during the 2023-20224 season? That game was the the fourth-coldest in league history, as temperatures plunged into the negatives.
One other note to add about adding an 18th game: How would that game be scheduled? The NFL's schedule is based on a rigid formula, and the 17th game was an additional AFC vs NFC positional game, based on prior season's results.
An 18th game would very likely be another cross-conference game, which will end up further lessening the overall importance of division and conference matchups. Considering the league scrapped a recent proposal by the Lions to change playoff seeding in part because of concerns over diminishing division rivalries, any move that runs against that seems counterintuitive.
Any way you slice it, those additional games just mean increased risk for players, due to weather, on-field play, extra practices, etc. Ideally from the NFLPA's perspective, the league would stick at 17 games.
If Goodell and the owners continue to insist on expanding to 18 games, though, players are going to push for as much revenue as possible in response. Of course, since the owners would want that extra game specifically to increase their own revenue, that sets the league and the NFLPA on a potential collision course.
For now, both sides appear to be content to allow the topic to rest. But this may just be the calm before the storm.