Roger Goodell speaks honestly about 18-game NFL season plan

During a Friday appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell discussed the poorly kept secret regarding the league's desire to eventually shift to an 18-game regular season.

"I think we're good at 17 [games] now," Goodell said, as Awful Announcing shared. "We're looking at how we continue. I'm not a fan of the preseason. I don't think we need three preseason games anymore. I don't buy it. I'd rather replace a preseason game with a regular-season [game] any day. That's just picking quality, right? If we got to 18 [regular-season games] and two [preseason games per team], that's not an unreasonable thing."

Goodell also mentioned that extending the regular season could push Super Bowl Sundays to Presidents' Day weekends, meaning many Americans would enjoy championship games as part of three-day breaks from work. Such an idea allegedly has been in the works since at least 2021.

"That ends up on Presidents' Day weekend, which is a three-day weekend, which makes the Sunday night, and then you have Monday off," Goodell added during the segment, per Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. 

Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones publicly announced in December 2022 that he had "been a proponent of" the format touched upon by Goodell at the NFL Draft site on Friday. As recently as this past January, Boomer Esiason hinted it was a matter of when, not if, the league goes to an 18-game season. 

At the same time, Esiason noted that the NFL Players Association "is gonna have a lot of pushback on" playing an extra meaningful game each campaign due to fears related to injuries. He suggested the league could convince the NFLPA by expanding active and/or practice-squad rosters.

Smith mentioned that an extra week of regular-season action would mean more money for everyone involved thanks to revenue generated via ticket sales, in-stadium purchases and media rights deals. Regardless of what critics may think, we're closer than ever to the 18-game/two preseason contest schedule becoming an NFL reality.