NFL moving to 18-game schedule seems inevitable: Breaking down logistics, player safety, playoff seeding, more

Many are speculating the league could expand to 18 games beginning in the 2027 season

PALM BEACH, Fla. — The NFL's annual league meetings came and went this week with the most drama circulating around a tabled rules proposal for a play that accounts for less than a half a percent of all offensive snaps.

While we all talked about the Tush Push, there was hardly a formal mention of the prospect of adding an 18th regular-season game. An ambition of the NFL's for more than a decade, that grail was "not a focus of our discussions by any stretch of the imagination" over the two-day meetings, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said.

In truth, it didn't need to be spoken. As one source pointed out in the lobby of the famed Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, the idea of an 18th game was treated like "a fait accompli" even though it must be collectively bargained with the NFL Players Association. It seems so certain there's almost no consternation among NFL team owners about even when it will take place, as several sources have believed it wouldn't be instituted until the 2027 season at the earliest.