The first night of the 2024 NFL Draft was a huge success. Caleb Williams broke the Fanatics record for draft day merchandise sales, surpassing Caitlin Clark's massive sales a few weeks ago. Viewership was high at 11.29 million combined viewers and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke about how the league continues to expand its international presence. The NFL is stronger than ever, and Goodell hinted today at another possible expansion that could be coming soon to the league.
On a recent appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Roger Goodell shared his thoughts on the possibility of expanding the NFL regular season.
“I think we’re good at 17 now, but listen we’re looking on how to continue,” Goodell said. “I’m not a fan of the preseason, I don’t think we need preseason anymore. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think these guys (points to the crowd) buy it either. But the reality is I think I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular season game any day. That’s just picking quality right, so if we got to 18 and 2, that's not an unreasonable thing. The other thing it does is that it ends up on President's Day Weekend, which makes that Sunday night, and then you have the Monday night off, so now we’re thinking.”
It seems that Goodell is trying to pave the way for future changes he would like to see happen.
The NFL recently added a 17th regular season game in 2021. It appears that the NFL is eyeballing an even 18-game season that would further increase league revenue.
Possible implications of an 18-game NFL regular season
The possibility of an 18-game regular season creates a lot of questions.
An 18-game regular season would certainly be great for generating revenue and would make fans happy to have more football. But how would the players feel about it?
It is possible that NFL players would have a variety of concerns with adding another regular season game to the schedule without any further concessions. Eliminating one preseason game is a good start, but adding to the NFL regular season could cause more wear and tear on players before the playoffs. Nobody wants to see one of the NFL's stars injured in a low-stakes Week 19 matchup only to miss the playoffs.
One possible solution could be adding a second bye week to the schedule. This could be a nice compromise that could stretch the NFL regular season even further and provide players with much-needed rest down the stretch. The added bye week also folds in nicely with the NFL's overarching goals of increasing player safety.
During this offseason, the NFL has made a handful of changes related to player safety. The league agreed to adopt an XFL-style kickoff format in the 2024 season that should reduce injuries on kickoff plays. The NFL also recently approved the use of Guardian Caps in games, though it is still unclear if they will be required.
It is clear that the NFL will make a push for extending the regular season again during the next round of CBA negotiations in 2030.
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