NFL Players Push Back on 18th Game: ‘Stop Lying to People’

Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith is one of many former and current NFL players speaking out against adding an 18th game to the league’s regular-season schedule. 

Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, also wants the league to be honest about its intentions.

“Stop lying to people,” Smith told Front Office Sports on Friday at Radio Row in San Francisco ahead of Super Bowl LX. “Tell people that the 18th game is about extra money because that’s really what it’s about.”

The addition of an extra game was a hot topic during Super Bowl week, with everyone from Roger Goodell to current players weighing in. Goodell said that “it is not a given” that the league will expand to an 18th game, adding that there have been little to no conversations on the topic. 

NFLPA interim executive director David White also chimed in, saying that “the 18th game is not casual for us” in his Super Bowl press conference. “As it stands right now, players have been very clear: they don’t have any appetite for it.” 

In speaking with FOS at Radio Row, players voiced concerns in line with White’s comments.

Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. said, “I’m not a huge fan of that. It’s hard enough now to get through a full season, and then you add that extra game … as of right now, that’s not something I see players really wanting to do.” 

Similar to Pittman, Smith worries about an extra game due to the potential effects on players’ health, questioning how the NFL could pursue more games after placing such an emphasis on safety in recent years.

“If you’re so concerned about head trauma and injuries, you think an 18th game is going to eliminate head trauma?” Smith said. “No, that’s more chances for me to get banged in the head.”

Two-time Super Bowl champion Malcolm Jenkins remembers how strong the opposition was to a 17th game and said that the “writing’s on the wall” for adding another.  

“I think the players need to focus on just making sure with that 18th game that they focus on their health and wellness, that they’re compensated. You know, accordingly. And that they think about the long-term ramifications.”

Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins told FOS that he has yet to get an answer to the one question he has on the subject. That question: “What are we getting in return?”

‘It’s Going to Happen’ 

Discussion on the 18th game has been ongoing for more than a year. At Super Bowl LIX, Greg Olsen called the move “inevitable,” stating the potential added revenue as the driving force behind the decision.

“When that cap continues to go up, and they sell that TV package, or wherever they reshuffle the deck, someone’s going to pay big money for those games. And that money is going to be split between the owners, and it’s going to be split with the players’ union, however they negotiate the new contract. So it’s going to happen. I think it’s just a matter of the timing.”

Cousins’s teammate, running back Bijan Robinson, offered a different perspective from the majority of his peers. “For me, it’s more football, so I love it. I don’t know about the guys, though. They want to help their bodies, and I’m all for that as well. So whatever they decide, that’s what we gotta do.”