What's better than 17 regular season games on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers schedule? If you're the NFL, the answer is 18.
While there's no official discussions happening about the idea right now, it didn't take a football genius to think the league might want to see the Buccaneers and all the other 31 NFL franchises in action for 18 games as soon as they got approval to expand the regular season to 17 starting in 2021.
After all, while the players that suit up for Tampa Bay are risking much more, all involved are in the business, at least to a certain extent, to make money.
One way it can do that is by adding regular season games which sell more tickets and cost more for advertisers to run commercials during them.
The NFL got a 17th regular season game on the schedule starting in 2021 and agreed to reduce the amount of preseason games from four to three in the process. Currently, the same collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that authorized the 17th regular season game prohibits the addition of an 18th.
But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell may have a plan for that hurdle.
“I think we’re good at 17 now,” recently said on the Pat McAffee Show. “But, listen, we’re looking at how we continue. I’m not a fan of the preseason. I don’t think we need three preseason games. I don’t buy it. … I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular season any day... So if we got to 18 and two, that’s not an unreasonable thing.”
While Goodell's idea sounds reasonable on the surface, it's certainly not without concern. Could we see the NFL really give an NFL team a Week 4 bye week and then make them play 15 straight regular season games? Then there are the practice squad players, the undrafted free agents, and the unproven third or fourth guys on the depth chart who would never get noticed if not for preseason games.
At the end of the day what's good for the bottom line is good for the NFL, and it's not the player's bottom line it's worried about. If the league and its owners want an 18th regular season game then chances are they'll get it.
And it's not likely a matter of if, but when.
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