Report hints when NFL could move to a 18-game regular season

Current New York Giants analyst and franchise icon Carl Banks predicted this past Sunday that the NFL will move to a schedule that includes teams playing 18 regular-season games starting with the 2025-26 campaign. 

Banks may have been spot on. 

Mark Maske of The Washington Post reported on Tuesday afternoon that "a person on the players' side" expects NFL team owners will bring a proposal to the NFL Players Association for an 18-game season "in the next 12 to 18 months." Such a timeline could allow the league to reveal a new scheduling format as soon as May 2025. 

Commissioner Roger Goodell said at the NFL Draft site last week that he doesn't "think we need three preseason games anymore" and that going to a schedule of 18 regular-season games and two preseason contests per team is "not an unreasonable thing." Maske noted that the current collective bargaining agreement that expires in 2031 requires owners to receive approval from the NFLPA to move "to eighteen (18) or more" regular-season games. 

Maske believes the union may ask for a second in-season bye week to be included in a so-called "18-and-two" schedule. 

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote on Monday that he thinks "the players will cry 'uncle'" and accept the 18-game season whenever negotiations between the sides become serious. 

The NFL traditionally has avoided starting regular seasons over Labor Day weekends, in part due to concerns about television ratings during the final holiday break of the summer. However, Maske reported that the league "could opt to begin the regular season earlier" with an 18-game format and/or eliminate the pre-Super Bowl bye week to ensure that Super Bowl contests occur over Presidents' Day weekends.

The NFL wanted to link Super Bowl Sundays with Presidents' Day even before the league officially expanded the regular season to 17 games per team in March 2021.

Maske mentioned that owners likely will "argue that players, under the salary cap system, share in any increase in revenue related to the additional regular-season game." 

Owners getting their desired 18-game season seems inevitable, and it likely won't be long after that before they push to replace the remaining preseason contests with meaningful games.