‘It’s gotta stop at some point’: Flacco questions if adding 18th game is right move for NFL
April 17, 2026
I think Flacco makes some great points here.
8 comments
Its all about money. They could make preseason 1 game, dropping 2. Add another bye week and an 18th game, and that would make sense. But they’d wouldn’t make more money so it won’t happen.
Plenty negatives that will come of it.
A strength the NFL has is it’s a short window. If you have a 25 week season including playoffs and downtime then it’s beginning to tire its audience. Fantasy sports would be heavily impacted by injury after injury which can kill some interest just out of annoyance.
Players will demand more pay, protections, guarantees, etc. They NEED fully guaranteed contracts. No more 5 year deals that are actually 5 one year deals.
Teams will need to learn how to manage playing time better like other sports. Maybe expand rosters slightly. More rotations and backups getting more experience is not terrible, just different. 3 preseason games is still too many.
NFL owners act like too much exposure isn’t a thing.
If the league is going to keep adding games, they need to add another BYE week and allow for larger rosters.
And unc is right
Brother they play 6 months of the year while 90% of other sports play the entire year.. even rugby players play nearly 10 months a year and they are stills complaining? Geez let’s give those millionaires more vacation time.
I’m kind of curious why the NFL want to push for an 18 regular season week. Late season games with teams out of it don’t pull many viewers anyway.
If they need more content, they should add a Wild Card play in in week. That would give them 6 national games they could sell off as a package and probably make more money anyway. Add some rules to sub in bad division winners over good teams that finish 2nd, and would be much more entertaining.
8 comments
Its all about money. They could make preseason 1 game, dropping 2. Add another bye week and an 18th game, and that would make sense. But they’d wouldn’t make more money so it won’t happen.
Plenty negatives that will come of it.
A strength the NFL has is it’s a short window. If you have a 25 week season including playoffs and downtime then it’s beginning to tire its audience. Fantasy sports would be heavily impacted by injury after injury which can kill some interest just out of annoyance.
Players will demand more pay, protections, guarantees, etc. They NEED fully guaranteed contracts. No more 5 year deals that are actually 5 one year deals.
Teams will need to learn how to manage playing time better like other sports. Maybe expand rosters slightly. More rotations and backups getting more experience is not terrible, just different. 3 preseason games is still too many.
NFL owners act like too much exposure isn’t a thing.
If the league is going to keep adding games, they need to add another BYE week and allow for larger rosters.
And unc is right
Brother they play 6 months of the year while 90% of other sports play the entire year.. even rugby players play nearly 10 months a year and they are stills complaining? Geez let’s give those millionaires more vacation time.
I’m kind of curious why the NFL want to push for an 18 regular season week. Late season games with teams out of it don’t pull many viewers anyway.
If they need more content, they should add a Wild Card play in in week. That would give them 6 national games they could sell off as a package and probably make more money anyway. Add some rules to sub in bad division winners over good teams that finish 2nd, and would be much more entertaining.
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