It has long been viewed as an inevitability that the NFL will expand to an 18-game regular season. An adjustment to the CBA will likely be required for that to be possible, and as such an agreement involving the NFL and NFLPA will should be negotiated.
Informal talks as regards to reducing the preseason to 2 games and adding an 18th regular season contest have taken place between the league and union already. Partly because of those discussions, some have pointed to 2027 or 2028 as the purpose at which an expanded schedule could possibly be implemented. The present CBA runs through 2030, but latest media rights deals – and thus the predominant source of one other pending surge in revenues – will likely be in place by then.
Commissioner Roger Goodell said this spring that no formal discussions are planned about CBA adjustments or extensions. To little surprise, then, Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports no serious talks related to the schedule are expected to begin until a minimum of early 2026. Any concession on the a part of the union would in fact be tied to negotiations on other fronts. Topics reminiscent of travel, playing surfaces and the addition of a second bye week have been mentioned as key issues for the NFLPA.
Maske names the period after the 2026 league meeting as some extent at which negotiations could pick up. In any case, the character of talks on this front will make for a notable storyline as efforts on the league’s part proceed to expand the regular season schedule. Per Maske, Goodell has not yet “pressed” the union to speed up discussions, although the NFL’s goals regarding a broader international schedule specifically are in fact well-known.
Adding an 18th game would likely pave the best way for a slate of 16 international contests each regular season. Other matters will little question be tied to movement on this front, so plenty of key CBA-related issues will likely be affected if/when an agreement could be reached between the league and union. The timeline for such talks is currently uncertain, though.