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Report: 17-game schedule could be on the horizon for the NFL
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There could be one more game added to the NFL regular season in the near future, according to a report from ESPN’s Chris Mortenson and Adam Schefter.
On Sunday, Mortenson and Schefter reported that the NFL Players Association is set to meet after Super Bowl LIV to vote on adding an additional game to the regular season. If it was to pass, the 17-game schedule could be implemented as early as the 2021 season.
All 32 team player representatives, along with the NFLPA executive board, will meet at an undisclosed location to review a 10-year labor contract for the second time within a week that, as one source described, the players have the option to “accept the one thing they hate, a 17-game season, in exchange for 10 or more things they want.”
Adding additional games to the already-grueling 16-game schedule has been a topic of discussion for some time now, but nothing has come to fruition. Talks about elimination NFL preseason games in order to create the possibility of an expanded regular season has also been in consideration.
The NFL has not added regular season games to the schedule since switching from a 14-game to a 16-game slate in 1978.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB