Massive update on if NFL will have 18-game regular season in 2027 revealed

It's no secret that NFL team owners and league commissioner Roger Goodell want to expand the regular season to 18 games per club before the full schedule for the 2027 campaign is released next spring. 

Per an update shared by longtime NFL reporter Mark Maske, it sounds like the current season format may exist through at least next year. 

Why the NFL may not get to an 18-game regular season before 2028 at the earliest

On Wednesday, Maske revealed that the NFL and NFL Players Association had "not yet begun formal negotiations on an 18-game season and other" collective bargaining agreement issues. Per the terms of the current CBA that runs through the 2030 season, the NFLPA must agree to expanding the campaign by any length. 

"That further reduces the chances that an 18-game season could take effect as soon as the 2027 season, as some owners once had hoped," Maske added. 

On Thursday morning, Maske noted that he had heard from sources that the "NFL and NFLPA have not yet launched formal negotiations on an 18-game season and other CBA issues." 

During this year's draft, Goodell raised some eyebrows when he said that the league moving to an 18-game season was "not inevitable." In May, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft hinted that he had lost some confidence that the league would get its desired schedule format of 18 regular-season weeks and two preseason weeks anytime soon. 

Many have assumed that the union will eventually ask for teams to have two bye weeks per season during negotiations related to possibly expanding the campaign. However, NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated suggested in his latest mailbag that an altered schedule with two bye weeks for teams isn't a lock.

"As for adding another bye week," Breer explained, "there are considerations. The first is how hard the television and streaming partners push back on that, because with two bye weeks, an already stretched schedule with depleted Sundays gets pushed even more to the limit. The second is whether players want their season, which runs from mid-July report dates to a mid-February Super Bowl, to be extended even further."

Has NFL given up on 18-game season for 2027?

Also on Wednesday, NFL reporter Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk repeated that the door for an 18-game season being debuted in 2027 "remains open until the NFL locks in a specific date for Super Bowl LXII, to be played in Atlanta in February 2028." It's unclear when the date for that game could be officially announced.