Despite continued pushback from the NFL Players Association, the league and team owners proceed to obsess over the aspect of expanding the regular season to 18 games. Not only does the NFL feel that the expansion is inevitable, but additionally they proceed to imagine they’ll have the opportunity to make it occur before the expiration of the present Collective Bargaining Agreement, which added the seventeenth regular season game in 2020 and is ready to run out in 2031.
The intentions of the league and team owners to respect of the desires of the NFLPA are being made clear as they proceed to schedule for the long run. After owners met twice this season without finalizing a date for Super Bowl LXII in February 2028, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk believes they’re “specifically (leaving) the door open for the opportunity of an expansion of the regular season from 17 to18 games by 2027.”
In a season with 18 games, two bye weeks, and two weeks between the conference championships and the massive game, it’s believed the Super Bowl would fall on February 27, 2028. Multiple aspects — just one bye week, just one week between conference championships and Super Bowl, and the potential to start out Week 1 on Labor Day weekend — could also put the Super Bowl in 2028 on February 20.
Per Florio, the recent turmoil and upheaval throughout the NFLPA, which saw a change of leadership over the course of months prior to now yr, have gummed up the gears on the league’s expansion efforts. Latest NFLPA executive director J.C. Tretter only took over by April 1, leaving the NFL little or no time to barter a brand new CBA (five years early), land a successful vote from the players, and implement the expanded season for 2027.
So long as February 13, 2028, stays freed from any Super Bowl reservations, though, it seems the league doesn’t intend to let their early schedule dreams go the best way of the dodo quietly. With their ability to extend the league’s international schedule and the aim to place one international contest on each team’s schedule per season, league leadership is working any avenues they’ll to attempt to mold the schedule to suit their desires.