An 18-game NFL season is coming, and no one can do anything to stop it. Well … that’s not true.
But oddly, it seems to have already been embraced as inevitable by all parties just three years since the league went to 17 games, its first expansion of the regular season in 43 years.
It’s less a march to 18 games and more of a jog. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hasn’t been shy about it. NFL team owners are seemingly already counting their chickens. Players appear to have accepted this will certainly happen during their careers even though they could simply not engage with the league for the next seven years and everything would stay the same.
There is nothing in the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement that guarantees an 18-game season. Signed in 2020, the CBA is good through the 2030 NFL season. And adding something as massive as an 18th game would require an additional agreement between the league and the NFL Players Association.
Many around the league have anticipated this ultimately gets done via an amendment to the CBA. The NFL gets its 18th game with an obvious reduction to two preseason games, and the players get something, or some things, in return.
But multiple sources I’ve spoken to in recent months have floated another possibility. What if the union and league simply rip up the current CBA and redo it? What if, in a relatively peaceful time between labor and management, the two sides reach a new agreement well ahead of the March 2031 deadline and set sail on a new deal that includes the 18 games and a host of new benefits for players?
No one must wait several years just to posture near the deadline. No threat of a lockout. No one’s out any money. The inevitability of 18 games becomes reality, and everyone winds up making more money anyway.
Sources say the league and union have not engaged in any talks around an 18th game, or even about an entirely new CBA. But…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/why-a-new-cba-could-lead-to-nfl-union-deal-on-18th-game-making-case-for-getting-it-done-sooner-than-later/
Author : Jonathan Jones
Publish date : 2024-05-31 10:00:51
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