Patriots owner Robert Kraft not confident 18-game NFL season is imminent?

For years, football insiders and media analysts have insisted that the NFL shifting to a schedule that involves each team playing 18 regular-season games and two preseason contests per campaign (minus the Hall of Fame Game) is inevitable. 

Earlier this winter, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that "every team will go to 18 [regular season games] and two [preseason games] and eliminate one of the preseason games." During a recent conversation with Lachlan Cartwright of Vanity Fair, Kraft seemed less certain that such a shift is imminent. 

Robert Kraft now only has "hope" for an 18-game season?

"In our new labor agreement," Kraft explained, "I hope we go to 18 games and two preseason games, and then if we do that, it would allow us to hopefully go to 16 international games, so we would have every team every year play an international game, which would be built mainly through a streaming audience."

Interestingly, Kraft offered those comments after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said during this year's draft that the league moving to an 18-game season is "not inevitable." Per the terms of the collective bargaining agreement that runs through the 2030 campaign, the NFL Players Association must agree to a new expansion of the regular season. Kraft's words could lead one to believe that team owners aren't close to getting the union to sign off on such a deal. 

Why players may not want to drag their feet regarding an 18-game season

One report from late April indicated that fans could get an 18-game season "by 2028." Super Bowl LXII in February of that year still doesn't have a locked-in date, which continues to suggest that the league hasn't yet given up on adding a week of regular-season action to the calendar for the 2027 campaign. 

"The question is when a new labor agreement will be finalized," NFL insider Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote for a piece published on Tuesday night. "If the current one expires in March 2031, the NFL will possibly (if not likely) lock out the players until they agree to the adjustment to the season. That makes it arguably prudent for the players to agree to 18 games sooner than later, especially because each season that includes an 18th game will result in more revenue — especially if a second bye extends the regular season to 20 weeks and adds 10 more total broadcast windows." 

As Florio referenced, the union is expected to ask for teams to have two bye weeks per campaign and for clubs to expand their rosters in return for agreeing to expand the regular season. It's believed that the league's long-term goal is to replace every preseason week with a week of regular-season games.