NFL Rumors: 18-Game Schedule Proposal Hasn't Been Discussed amid Goodell Comments

Even though NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is publicly planting seeds for a potential 18-game regular-season schedule in the future, such a change doesn't appear to be imminent.

Per The Athletic's Mike Jones, league owners and the NFL Players Association haven't engaged in any discussions about expanding the schedule at this point.

Goodell expressed interest in adding an 18th game and reducing the preseason schedule among potential roster tweaks he would be interested in during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show last week.

Any change to the schedule would have to be collectively bargained between the league and NFLPA.

As Jones points out, such a change "would require a good deal of concessions" by the owners to get players to sign on.

When the most recent CBA was ratified in March 2020, it gave the league and/or teams discretion to increase the number of regular-season games from 16 to 17 and reduce the number of preseason games from three to two.

It only took one year before the NFL adopted the 17-game schedule in March 2021.

Even though Goodell's comments to Pat McAfee were hypothetical in the moment, the idea of a commissioner floating such a change on a public platform almost certainly wasn't an accident.

The change would likely not be able to happen until the next round of CBA negotiations. The current collective bargaining agreement runs through the 2030 season.

Given the amount of money that all 32 teams would make from an extra game, it's hardly surprising Goodell and the owners would be in favor of it.

Owen Poindexter of Front Office Sports noted in July 2022 the league's ad revenue for the 2021 season, the first year of the 17-game season, increased by 14 percent from the previous year.

The league made $19 billion in revenue for the 2022 season, with the goal of getting to $25 billion by 2027.

In response to Goodell's comment on McAfee, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow wrote on X that two bye weeks for teams would be something he would want if the schedule goes to 18 games.

San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle has been advocating for two bye weeks under the current 17-game schedule. It would seem likely that is at least one of the concessions the NFLPA would want to add more games.

All of this is something that the league owners and union representatives will eventually discuss at some point when they do sit down to talk about expanding the schedule yet again.