“It’s probably inevitable” - Mike Tomlin makes feelings known about 18-game regular season in NFL
The longest-tenured head coach in the NFL, Mike Tomlin, expects a longer regular season soon. On Monday, Tomlin said that adding an extra game to the regular season schedule seems like the next step.
“I listen and hear like you guys do. I think it’s been thrown about so much with so much regularity, I think it’s probably inevitable.”
The regular season was previously 16 games but expanded to 17 in 2021. The Steelers coach has never had a losing season in 18 seasons as head coach, guiding them to the playoffs in four of the previous five campaigns while winning one Super Bowl. Since the league expanded to a 17-game regular season, Tomlin has won nine or more games yearly.
A schedule expansion to 18 games is an idea that’s been talked about for quite some time. However, it’s never been seriously considered.
The United States Football League played an 18-game season during the 1980s, while the World Football League played 20 games back in the 1970s.
NFLPA’s view on expanded schedule
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who explained the possibility of adding more games to Bloomberg in January, said:
“We would keep within the 20-game framework.
“We went to 16 and four, and now 17 and three. So, 18 and two is a logical step.”
Goodell claimed that safety data collected by the league doesn’t discourage expanding the regular season. Not everyone is on board with the idea of adding an additional game, notably NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell Jr.
In February, he said:
“Frankly, we’re not sure how he’s reaching that conclusion based on the data we’ve been given access to.
“No one wants to play an 18th game. No one. Seventeen games is already, for many of the guys, too long. Seventeen games is also so lengthy that you’re still dealing with injuries going into the next season.”
That would seem to contradict his comments from July 2024 when he was quoted as saying an 18-game schedule sounds "attractive.”
He added that many factors need to be discussed before the NFLPA would agree to that proposal. The current bargaining agreement expires at the end of the 2030 season, so if players and owners come to terms with this idea, we could see an 18-game regular season rolled out by 2031.