On Thursday, the NFL officially dropped a proposal for an 18-game season and is now focused on expanding the regular season to 17 games, according to The Athletic.
“Not enough owners support (for) 18 and players would not go for it either,” one of the sources said of why the change. The 17-game proposal will be paired with a reduction in the preseason by a game or two from the current four.
There are 18 months remaining on the current 10-year collective bargaining agreement, and the big ask from the owners in the early negotiations that started this summer has been an expansion of the regular season. Owners even floated earlier the idea that players could take two games off an 18 game season.”
The report goes on to state the idea was mocked because fans would be rather unhappy if they bought game tickets only to find out the best players weren’t going to play at all.
According to Kaplan, no talks are currently scheduled between the NFLPA and NFL, but they are expected to resume later this year or early in 2020.
The current CBA expires at the end of the 2020 season.
