Report: NFL expected to expand regular season to 17 games
The NFL is expected to announce the expansion of the regular season to 17 games this week, ESPN's Adam Schefter reports.
The league has reportedly been planning to add an extra game for the first time since 1978 since it agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement with the National Football League Players Association last March.
The new regular season will be 18 weeks long, with each team still having just one bye week. The Super Bowl will likely be pushed back into the second week of February to compensate for the extra game, and the league is also expected to reduce the preseason to two or three contests.
The NFL is also considering using the expansion to solidify its international series by staging four of the additional games overseas every season starting in 2022, according to Mark Maske of The Washington Post.
Here is every additional game for the 2021 season, according to Warren Sharp of The Ringer:
| Game |
|---|
| Seattle Seahawks at Pittsburgh Steelers |
| Los Angeles Rams at Baltimore Ravens |
| Arizona Cardinals at Cleveland Browns |
| San Francisco 49ers at Cincinnati Bengals |
| Green Bay Packers at Kansas City Chiefs |
| Chicago Bears at Las Vegas Raiders |
| Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Chargers |
| Detroit Lions at Denver Broncos |
| Washington Football Team at Buffalo Bills |
| New York Giants at Miami Dolphins |
| Dallas Cowboys at New England Patriots |
| Philadelphia Eagles at New York Jets |
| New Orleans Saints at Tennessee Titans |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Indianapolis Colts |
| Carolina Panthers at Houston Texans |
| Atlanta Falcons at Jacksonville Jaguars |
The extra games will reportedly be interconference matchups based on the previous campaign's divisional standings and set on a rotating divisional basis.
A 17-game slate should generate new revenue after league-wide financial losses during the 2020 campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The NFL was forced to lower the salary cap for 2021 to $182.5 million, down from $198.2 million this past season.
The league already expanded the playoffs this past campaign, adding an extra wild-card spot in each conference to form a 14-team postseason.
The move to a 17-game season comes amid newly signed TV deals for the NFL that are reportedly worth $10 billion annually and will run from 2023-33.