Sports

8 Reasons an 18-Game Season Is Bad Idea for the NFL

By Andrew Perloff Athlon Sports

Updated May 8, 2026 4:11 AM

Someone has to stop the NFL. As the long-anticipated 18-game regular season comes closer to reality, the league is ignoring the potential negative impact. The endless desire to tinker with the game and chase every last dollar will water down the product and hurt fans.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft talked about expansion in a Vanity Fair article celebrating commissioner Roger Goodell: "In our new labor agreement, I hope we go to 18 games and two preseason games, and then if we do that, it would allow us to hopefully go to 16 international games, so we would have every team every year play an international game, which would be built mainly through a streaming audience."

CBS Sports' Jonathan Jones reports that expansion would come by 2028 at the earliest, 2031 at the latest. There will be a heated battle between the league and the NFLPA about how it plays out, but the result appears to be inevitable.

The NFL's propensity for creating unintended consequences will come back to haunt the owners. Pro football blows away other sports with its ability to create meaningful games throughout the season. Even a minor change could snowball and knock competitive balance out of whack.

Can one extra game make that much of a difference? Absolutely. Here are eight likely negative outcomes from adding to the regular season…

8 reasons an 18-game season would be bad

1. Meaningless games

The playoffs are usually so good, everyone forgets how bad the last few weeks of the regular season were. In 2025, 13 teams were eliminated before Week 16 kicked off. With an extra game, almost a third of the league will face a month of irrelevant football.

The NBA's lack of competitive balance this season is well documented. The NFL is willing to blow right past that warning sign. The new schedule will set up embarrassing results. Not just when two eliminated teams face each other, but when good teams with healthy starters line up against a shell team of young players. Get ready to challenge the Bears' 73-0 win over Washington in 1940 for the most lopsided outcome of all time.

2. Tanking

The corollary to more meaningless games is more tanking. With teams eliminated early, nothing stops them from focusing on the draft. The NBA has been in a year-long panic about the pervasiveness of losing on purpose. The NFL feels immune, because the season is short enough to limit the problem and it usually only affects a few teams. But the league could face a perfect storm this season with a QB-heavy draft class and a number of veteran quarterbacks aging out. Imagine if tanking becomes a problem in '26 even before the league adds games.

The NFL plans to increase the length of the regular season by 6%. Teams will have more time to look ahead. Expect them to focus on the draft more than winning. If teams are maneuvering to draft Arch Manning, can you imagine what they'll do in six or seven years to get Peyton's 15-year-old son, Marshall Manning?

A member of the Miami Dolphins training staff attends to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (1) after an apparent concussion. Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

3. Injuries

The most well-publicized criticism of 18 games is health. In addition to the player welfare, the toll of missing games feeds the first two problems - meaningless games and tanking. Once again, the NBA provides a negative blueprint for how this can go. Watching the Lakers without Luka Dončić shows the difference one player can make.

The reaction to serious concussions the last few years seems muted. Even Tua Tagovailoa's harrowing experience didn't seem to bother fans that much. More games increase the probability of a catastrophic injury as well.

4. Cost to fans

If the NFL gets $1 billion-plus from networks and streamers for the extra game, fans will foot the bill. The Justice Department already launched an investigation into the cost of streaming games. The league wants to create more stand-alone games on streams. It will reportedly air the Rams-49ers Week 1 Friday game in Australia exclusively on Netflix. If you're the kind of fan that needs to see every game - like many of us - the price tag will keep going up.

5. International jet lag

Speaking of Australia, what is the NFL doing? Is it worth sacrificing quality to sell more T-shirts overseas? The quality of these games hasn't dramatically improved since they became a regular part of the schedule in '07. Kraft wants to go to 16 international games. That number will only grow. The negative impact is obvious on home fans who have one less game to attend in person. The TV audience is hurt by consistently lesser performances on the field.

If there were 16 teams in the playoffs last season, the Colts (8-9) would have been the AFC's No. 8 seed. Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK

6. Playoff expansion

The only way to keep teams more involved is to add more teams to the postseason. Only five losing teams have reached the postseason, but they've all come since 2010. If the NFL expands beyond 14 playoff spots, teams with losing records will qualify each season. An expanded postseason will water down the regular season, possibly even paving the way for football's version of load management.

7. More teams

Even one more game would be enough of a reason for owners to call for more teams so they can collect those massive franchise fees. If the NFL expands to 36 teams, parity will decrease further, leading to more tanking, a terrible last month and all of the problems listed above. When the NBA expands in the near future, football owners will demand to follow suit.

8. Apathy

No sport's reign at the top is forever. Baseball had almost 100 years of dominance and then fell back. Why would the NFL hurry the process along? Its short season helped catapult it so far past MLB and the NBA, there is no true competition in the U.S. Why risk coming back to the pack?

Roger Goodell works for the owners, but in a sense, he also reports to the fans. And they've been good to the league. The NFL has been immune to the challenges other sports face. Right now, every Sunday is a must-watch event. Taking that relationship with the public lightly is not worth the risk.

This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 4:00 AM.