NFL Is Pushing To Expand Regular Season To 18 Games
Buckle up, football fans. We are inching ever closer to an 18-game regular season.
Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry hinted at the possibility last week during the NFL Scouting Combine when he suggested extending the trade deadline to later in the season.
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"We want to retroactively correct the fact that the trade deadline never moved when the season expanded to 17 games," Berry said. "And… if, at some point in the future, the regular season expands to 18 games, we want to be proactive in terms of the positioning for the trade deadline."
READ: Browns GM Says His Team Is Proposing Moving Back NFL Trade Deadline
So Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio asked around: "The reaction was, basically, ‘Yeah. That’s coming.’"
Is An 18-Game NFL Season A Good Or A Bad Idea?
It's easy to understand why the NFL wants more games. The league is always looking for ways to make more money through media rights deals and sponsorship — oftentimes at the expense of fans and players. We saw it when they expanded the regular season to 17 games in 2021. And we certainly saw it when they forced us to subscribe to Peacock and Amazon Prime for exclusive, streaming-only games.
More inventory means more money. Period.
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On the surface, it sounds like a great thing for fans, too. We all go through a mini-depression when football season ends. And an 18-game season means delaying that empty feeling — even if for only one week. An extra game day. An extra tailgate. An extra opportunity to finally hit that big anytime-touchdown-scorer parlay.
But at what point are we watering down the product? In Major League Baseball, your team could lose by 14 runs one day and win by 14 the next. No sweat. In football, though, every game matters. One loss could be the difference between hosting a Wild Card game or watching the playoffs from the couch.
Not to mention the most obvious problem with an extended season: the health and safety of the players.
Mike Florio noted that an expanded season could come with safety measures, like regulating that no player can participate in more than 17 of the 18 regular-season games (with possible exceptions for quarterbacks, kickers, punters, and long snappers).
So now we're looking at NBA-style load management?
The good news is a change likely won't come before 2030, when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. And even then, the NFLPA will have to be on board.
Still, don't put it past the NFL to lock out its players like it did in 2011. Because no matter how many games you play, the almighty dollar always wins.