Report: NFL owners pitch 18-game schedule, but with players restricted to 16 games

Eric Edholm   Yahoo Sports    Jul 12, 2019, 2:11 PM

NFL team owners have pushed for an 18-game regular-season schedule for years. NFL players have resisted the idea for fears of the added physical toll that would incur.

Is it possible in the league’s the next labor agreement that both sides can find common ground on this issue?

One wild idea that’s resurfacing — as reported by the Wall Street Journal — is for the owners to get their 18-game schedule, which would raise revenue immensely, but for the players to be limited to 16 of those games.

The owners’ proposal during early negotiations is one that radically would reshape roster and game strategy. Here’s a starting point to consider how radical the idea is: Every team would need its backup quarterback(s) to start a minimum of two games each season.

Could something this wild happen?

The current CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) is set to expire following the 2020 NFL season, in March of 2021. A decade ago, labor negotiations were tense and drawn out. An owner lockout lasted well into the summer and wreaked havoc on the timing and planning of the 2011 NFL season, even though it was salvaged with a new agreement that July.

That time around, the owners initially made a strong push for an 18-game schedule, and you could understand their justification. According to WSJ, adding two games to each team’s slate could result in an additional $2.5 billion in revenue.

Extrapolate that, and it could lead to an estimated $15 million added to the salary cap for each team the first year. Spread out over 32 teams, the additional revenue could lead to approximately half a billion dollars going to roughly 2,000 players each year.