Getty Image / Perry Knotts
We all know the NFL is a money-hungry business. Wherever they can make a buck or save a buck, the 32 franchises will try to do just that.
But, at the same time, they say that they care about player safety. They have made rule changes to try to prevent injuries and help assuage long-term health concerns.
But, the NFL starts to lose all credibility on the player safety issue when they try to add extra games for the players. The league added a 17th regular season game in 2021, and faced plenty of criticism for it. Now, they want to add an 18th regular season game, according to reports.
Here’s Pro Football Talk with more.
When immersed within the NFL universe for multiple days, you pick up a few things. Here’s one thing I picked up this time around.
The push to 18 regular-season games hasn’t been abandoned, health and safety concerns be damned.
The first hint of it came when Browns G.M. Andrew Berry explained on PFT Live that Cleveland and other teams are proposing a delay of the trade deadline by 14 days, from the Tuesday after Week 8 to the Tuesday after Week 10. Berry said that one week was aimed at accounting for the extra week created by the 17th regular-season game — and that the second week was in anticipation of further expansion of the regular season, to 18 games.
That happened on Tuesday. In talking to folks after that, I mentioned Berry’s plan, with the anticipation of another game. The reaction was, basically, “Yeah. That’s coming.”
It likely won’t come until the next labor deal. And the league will likely have the same determination then that it had four years ago, when it was clear that the league wanted an extra game badly enough to lock out the players, like the NFL did in 2011.
I think that an 18th-game would be a terrible move unless it was paired with starting the season earlier, an extended training camp, and an extra bye week. That would help alleviate some player safety concerns. Plus, it would put the Super Bowl on President’s Day weekend, where it should be.
Yes, players would benefit financially from an extra game. Obviously, an extra week means an extra week of earnings to be split amongst the players. But, the players didn’t want a seventeenth game. Now, they will have huge leverage in negotiations at the next CBA negotiations. I’m curious as to what kind of concessions the players will try to get from the owners.
The current CBA doesn’t expire until 2030, but it’s hard to see the league want to wait that long.