In a possible sign of contentious negotiations to come, Indianapolis Colts center Ryan Kelly pushed back at the idea of the NFL expanding to 18 regular-season games in response to comments league commissioner Roger Goodell made on The Pat McAfee Show.
“Eighteen games sounds great when Roger’s saying it on Pat McAfee,” Kelly said, per ESPN’s Stephen Holder. “But until you’re the one that’s going out there and putting the helmet on for 18 of those games, then come talk to me.”
Kelly’s comments carry additional weight because he is the vice president on the NFL Players Association’s executive committee.
Goodell discussed potentially moving to 18 games in the regular season during an April appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. He suggested doing so could also allow the NFL to schedule the Super Bowl for Presidents’ Day weekend in mid-February, which would mean a national holiday for the Monday after the game.
“I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular-season game any day,” Goodell said. “… If we got to 18 and two, that’s not an unreasonable thing.”
Considering Goodell’s comments and the precedent that was already put in place when the NFL dropped a preseason game when moving from 16 to 17 regular-season contests, there would likely be two preseason games with any 18-game regular season slate.
But Kelly had an issue with that approach as well.
“I [wish] people understood how hard it was to play 16, then they [added] another one?” he said. “And they get rid of preseason games, well, OK, who’s that going to hurt? The guys that don’t have a shot, the guys that are the undrafted guys or late-round [picks] that need to go out there and improve themselves. I think that the fans see it like they don’t watch the preseason games, but they have no idea what goes on inside the building.”
Holder noted that moving from 16 to 17 games was “a contentious issue among players during the most recent CBA negotiations, with the contract ultimately passing narrowly with 51.5% of players voting in favor.”
Changing to 18 games would require collective bargaining between the players and league, and the current collective bargaining agreement is in place through the 2030 campaign.
It can be amended or renegotiated, but it doesn’t seem like the players are very open to the idea of an 18-game schedule.