SAN FRANCISCO — The NFL’s push for an 18-game regular season is gathering steam, despite more tempered comments from commissioner Roger Goodell. The NFL Players Association is well aware of that, but the union insists there is still “no appetite” among its membership for an expanded schedule.
Citing a wide range of concerns regarding player health and safety, and a potential degradation of overall career and earnings opportunities, the union insisted that adding to the regular season was not inevitable.
“The 18th game is not casual for us,” NFLPA interim executive director David White said Tuesday. “It’s a very serious issue. It’s something that comes out of negotiation, and nothing will move forward until players have the opportunity to account for all of [the] factors, take that into consideration, and then through negotiation, agree—or not—to the 18th game. But as it stands right now, players have been very clear. They don’t have any appetite for it.”
Those comments followed those of Goodell on Monday during his Super Bowl press conference, where he insisted that “we have not had any formal discussions about it and, frankly, very little, if any, informal conversations. … It is not a given that we will do that.”
That measured stance contrasts somewhat from the commissioner’s own remarks at the NFL annual meeting last spring, but dramatically from those of Patriots owner Robert Kraft just last week. Speaking on a Boston radio station, Kraft talked about an 18-game season as if it were a foregone conclusion.
“Every team will go to 18 [regular-season games] and two [preseason games] and eliminate one of the preseason games, and every team every year will play one game overseas,” Kraft said on WBZ-FM.
The latter portion of that comment also leans directly in to the NFL’s fast-growing global ambitions, furthered with Monday’s reveal of three additional international games in the 2026 season to create a record total of nine. Kraft’s remark also roughly matches another Goodell comment from the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit, where he said on The Pat McAfee Show that he would “rather replace a preseason game with a regular-season [game] any day, that’s just picking quality. If we got to 18 and two, that’s not an unreasonable thing.”
Player Concerns
Beyond the issues cited by union leadership around adding an 18th game to the regular season, individual NFL players continue to point out the need for greater compensation. Already, the NFL salary cap for 2026 is projected to be between $301 million and $306 million—more than $20 million greater than this season, and about 50% higher than the level of just four years ago. But there could be a push for even more in return for the elongated schedule.
“If the 18th game is on the table, there’s going to have to be some talks about what makes that worth it to the players,” said Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp. “And we’ll get to that point. We’ll cross that bridge.”
The current labor deal between NFL owners and players expires in 2030, but the rising discussion surrounding the 18th game continues to suggest the potential for an implementation earlier than that. That, too, would require players agreeing to reopen the current deal.
“The league has been more proactive in stating their wishes and their desires,” said NFLPA president and Bears linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin. “But there hasn’t been any true negotiation about that happening.”
What is generally agreed on, though, is that the question of an 18th game is a far more complex matter than just changing a preseason game to a regular-season one. Instead, the potential move raises many questions about scheduling, competitive balance, a potential second bye week for each team, and the overall league calendar.
Further complicating the issue is the union’s ongoing leadership transition amid several overlapping scandals. White took over as interim director after Lloyd Howell quit over questions about his spending and various conflicts of interest; the organization is now searching for a permanent leader.
“As [the NFLPA] determines their priorities, we are doing the same at the ownership level so that when we get together, we can address these issues together,” Goodell said.
