Eight years ago, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones appeared on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas and made it clear that he wanted an 18-game NFL season with just two preseason games. He argued that players often face a greater risk of injury during the preseason, describing it as a “ramped-up injury situation.” But his case for the change went beyond player safety. Jones also saw an 18-game schedule as “a better application of their careers and talent,””the right balance of financial reward as well as exposure.”

Jones has hardly backed down from that argument over the years. If anything, he has found more support for the idea, including from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who publicly floated the possibility in 2024. There has been significant pushback from the players’ side from the outset, but Jones is making the same case again, this time with even greater conviction. According to The Athletic’s Jon Machota, he anticipates the change coming as soon as next year.

“It’s in everybody’s best interest…I would anticipate that coming,” said Jerry.

The debate over the NFL expanding the regular season by one additional game has certainly divided the league. While one side supports an 18-game regular season and 16 international games, the other remains concerned about player health and safety. Jerry Jones, meanwhile, has supported the idea of an 18th game for years.

When he first made the case in 2018, the NFL still played 16 regular-season games and four preseason games. His preferred format was 18 regular-season games and two preseason games, keeping the total number of games at 20. The league has since moved to 17 regular-season games and three preseason games, so the same adjustment today would mean replacing one exhibition with one game that counts.

Jones has argued that the change would give players more meaningful playing time and a greater share of the money generated by the league. Back in 2018, he claimed the proposal could provide more than $1 billion to players. He also argued that shortening the preseason and training camp could reduce injury exposure, pointing to what he described as an increase in concussions during preseason football.

His financial case has remained central to the pitch. During his comments earlier this year, Jones used the phrase, “When the ducks quack, feed them,” arguing that the NFL should respond to the demand for its games.

He added: “We have that demand for our games, and because of the hard work of the great players we have, we have a great demand. We should address it, respond to it, and feed it.”

Jones also believes players should benefit from the additional value created by another regular-season game. But that is where the owners’ argument runs into the players’ concerns: an extra game would bring another round of competitive snaps and physical contact, even if one preseason game were removed.

The owners are not the only ones interested in expanding the schedule. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft publicly backed an 18-game regular season in January 2026 and linked the proposal to the league’s international ambitions. Goodell, however, was more cautious when asked about it the following month. The commissioner said there had been no formal discussions with the NFLPA and “very little” informal conversation. He also stressed that expansion was “not a given.”

The international ambitions deserve some distinction here. Goodell has spoken about a long-term goal of staging 16 international games each season, while NFL owners approved an increase to as many as 10 league-operated international games from 2027. The league has nine international games scheduled for 2026.

The players’ resistance remains the bigger obstacle to the 18-game proposal. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes made his position clear in 2025, saying, “I’m not a big fan of it.” He also suggested that the league would need to build in more recovery time if it went ahead with the change.

“I think that you’d have to find a way to have more bye weeks, more time spread out,” Mahomes said.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has also floated the idea of another bye week. He suggested spreading the existing bye weeks through the season and adding another break around Week 13, potentially alongside a Pro Bowl-style event. The idea would give players another opportunity to recover before the final stretch, rather than simply extending the schedule without accounting for the physical demands. Those concerns are not limited to individual players.

In February 2026, NFLPA interim executive director David White said players had “no appetite” for an 18th game in its current form. He stressed that the union would not entertain changes that harmed player health, recovery, or their ability to compete at a high level. White also made clear that any agreement would have to account for those concerns and ensure players received a fair share of the additional value they created.

“The 18th game is not casual for us,” White said. “It’s a very serious issue. It’s something that comes out of negotiations and nothing will move forward until players have the opportunity to account for all of those factors.”

White was speaking as the union’s interim executive director. JC Tretter was elected to replace him on March 17 and took over the role on April 1. Tretter is a former NFL center who played nine seasons and previously served as NFLPA president from 2020 to 2024, including during the negotiation of the current collective bargaining agreement.

Tretter has made clear that player health and safety will remain central to the union’s position. “There are things that are not good for our players that we need to make sure we’re protecting them from. And as of right now, those are all subjects of bargaining,” he said. He added that the union would defend players’ health and safety as discussions over the schedule and international games develop.

That brings the discussion to the biggest obstacle facing Jones and the other owners: the current collective bargaining agreement. The CBA between the NFL and NFLPA runs through the 2030 season, and Article 31 specifically allows the league to increase the regular season from 16 games to 17, but not beyond that. It states that the league and clubs “shall not increase the number of regular season games per Club to eighteen (18) or more games.”

In other words, the owners cannot simply vote to add an 18th game under the existing agreement. They would need the NFLPA’s agreement to amend the terms. The CBA does not necessarily prevent the two sides from reaching a new arrangement before it expires, but it does prevent the league from making the change unilaterally.

There is a similar distinction with international games. The current agreement requires the league and union to meet and confer over increasing the number beyond 10, with player working conditions, health and safety, travel burdens and other considerations part of that discussion. It is not accurate to treat the 10-game figure as an unconditional permanent ceiling, but further expansion does involve the union.

The timeline also makes Jones’s 2027 expectation difficult to take as a likely outcome. In February, Goodell said the league had not held formal discussions with the NFLPA about an 18th game. By June, reporting indicated that formal negotiations over a new CBA had still not begun. That leaves a substantial amount to resolve before the league could introduce a new schedule.

There is a practical scheduling consideration, too. The NFL has set Super Bowl LXII in Atlanta for February 13, 2028, following the 2027 season. An 18-game schedule could require adjustments to the calendar, particularly if players receive the additional bye week Mahomes and others have called for. A second bye would stretch the regular season and could push the Super Bowl later into February.

The NFL has expanded its regular season before. It moved from 14 games to 16 in 1978, then introduced the 17-game format in 2021 after the current CBA gave the league a mechanism to make that change. That previous expansion also reduced the preseason from four games to three. But the 2021 change was specifically provided for in the agreement; the same agreement does not give owners the authority to move to 18 games.

That said, while Jerry Jones is optimistic that the NFL is getting closer to reducing the preseason games to two while expanding the regular season to 18 games, it still remains to be seen how this scenario will eventually unfold. So far, the league’s idea for an additional game hasn’t been received very well by the players.