Could NFL expand to 18-game regular season as soon as 2025?

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell raised eyebrows when he said during an interview released last week that he felt adding an 18th game to the regular season is the "logical" next step for the league. 

Per the terms of the collective bargaining agreement that expires after the 2030 season, the NFL Players Association must consent to another expansion of the regular-season format. It seems the union is at least willing to hear what the league has to say on the matter before the 2025 schedule is released this coming spring. 

"The NFL and NFLPA can reach any agreement they want at any time," league insider Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote in a piece published Thursday. "And we’ve heard that the two sides have spoken, as recently as Monday." 

Whispers emerged even before the NFL moved to a schedule that included 17 regular-season games and three preseason contests per team in 2021 that owners would soon look to add at least one more meaningful matchup to the schedule. During the 2024 draft, Goodell shared that he believed going to 18 regular-season games was "not unreasonable," in part because he is "not a fan of the preseason." 

A plethora of paying customers also aren't fans of having to spend money to watch squads made up mostly of backups go through the motions during August exhibition games. 

"So when could 18 games happen? The Super Bowl to cap the 2026 season already lands on President’s Day weekend in 2027 because Labor Day lands on the latest possible day in 2026, on Sept. 7. And while the location for the February 2028 Super Bowl has been selected (Atlanta), the date for the game has not yet been set," Florio added in his piece.

Of course, the NFL showed this past fall that it will change a date for a game even if doing so inconveniences fans who previously bought tickets, made travel plans and secured hotel rooms for that contest. Additionally, it's widely believed the NFL's long-term goal is to scrap the preseason, entirely, and go to a 20-regular-season game schedule that probably will include teams having two byes per campaign. 

Thus, it's reasonable to believe owners would shift to an 18-game format as soon as the NFLPA approves a proposal.