Cowboys' Jerry Jones Updates Timeline for 18-Game NFL Schedule, Changes to Preseason

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones believes the NFL could move to an 18-game schedule as soon as the 2027 season.

During his weekly appearance on 105.3 The Fan's K&C Masterpiece show (h/t The Athletic's Jon Machota), Jones said the 18-game regular season is a possibility to be implemented next season and it would coincide with a reduced preseason schedule.

"It's in everybody's best interest. … I would anticipate that coming," Jones said.

The NFL adopted its current 17-game format starting with the 2021 season as part of the most recent collective bargaining agreement.

The current CBA runs through the 2030 season, so any change to the current schedule format would require a negotiation between the league and players' union.

Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters in February during his annual pre-Super Bowl press conference there had not yet been any "formal discussions" with the NFL Players Association about expanding the regular-season schedule.

"We have not had any formal discussions about it and frankly very little of any informal conversations," Goodell said. "It is not a given that we will do that. It's not something we assume will happen. It's something we want to talk about with the union leadership."

In a March interview with The Athletic's Mike Jones, newly-elected NFLPA executive director JC Tretter said that player healthy and safety would be a priority for the union in any scheduling changes:

"There are things that are not good for our players that we need to make sure we're protecting them from. And as of right now, those are all subjects of bargaining. The league can't expand past 10 international games. The league's at 17 games in the CBA, that is where we're at, and we're going to make sure we defend our players and their health and safety, because our guys feel they know what this feels like."

Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio reported back in May that expansion to 18 games in time for the 2027 season is "highly unlikely."

The NFL has already announced Super Bowl 62 will be played on Feb. 13, 2028. That could be an indication the league isn't expecting an 18-game schedule because, as Florio noted, adding an extra game would also likely result in teams receiving two bye weeks during the regular season instead of one.

That would stretch the regular season out to 20 weeks, meaning Week 1 would have to be in the final week of August unless the NFL did away with the off-week between the conference championship games and Super Bowl.

It doesn't appear the NFL is eager to do that having previously cited the "enormous logistical challenges involved" with staging a Super Bowl that requires the additional time to put the event together.

Since the NFL introduced the current scheduling format in 2002 with the standalone kickoff game in Week 1, Sept. 4 is the earliest date a game has been played. The 1997 season marks the last time an NFL season has started prior to Sept. 1 when Week 1 was played on Aug. 31.