Jerry Jones reveals when he thinks NFL expands to 18-game season, but process to get there is complicated

Jones sees the NFL 'maybe' expanding to an 18-game regular season sooner than one might think

Nov 13, 2026 at 3:36 pm ET • 3 min read

The National Football League regular season could be expanding once again.

From 1978 to 2020, the NFL played a 16-game regular season, but that changed in 2021 as the league expanded to a 17-game regular season. However, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, one of the league's most influential voices, feels an expansion to an 18th regular-season game is just around the corner. 

"I don't think we're far away from it," Jones said Friday, via 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. "What is far away? Next month? No. Next year? Next year, maybe. Next year, maybe. That has to be negotiated with the players, but it's in everybody's best interest."

Why would a greater physical toll in the regular season benefit the league's players playing one of the most violent sports? Jones claims the compromise would be to trim the NFL preseason once again. Teams typically play three exhibition games as a warm-up and to evaluate the back-end depth on their respective rosters. Two teams end up playing four preseason games if they participate in the "Hall of Fame Game" centered around the Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinements in August.

Jones feels simply erasing more preseason games and having the early regular season games, which already have a preseason feeling to them, is in everyone's best interest, players included. The NFL would certainly be in a position to ask for more money on its next media rights deals with its broadcast partners in that scenario. The league signed its current 11-year, $110 billion media rights deal with CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN/ABC and Amazon Prime Video in 2023. 

"You would cut back on the preseason games," Jones said. "You would have teams develop more in the first few games as the type of thing you're trying to get done in the preseason, but it's in everybody's interest. It certainly is in the player's best interest, in my mind, for sure. Having said that, I would anticipate that coming."

Negotiating hurdles stand in way of any change

The league's current CBA with the players' union is locked in through the 2030 season, so any tweaks to the regular season would necessitate additional negotiation between the league and the union. Commissioner Roger Goodell didn't see an 18-game regular season on the horizon like Jones does now when he addressed the topic at Super Bowl LX in February. 

"We have not had any formal discussions about it and frankly very little of any informal conversations," Goodell told reporters back in February. "It is not a given that we will do that. It's not something we assume will happen. It's something we want to talk about with the union leadership."  

One league source voiced concern to CBS Sports about increased injuries in an 18-game regular season in April. That is believed to be the biggest holdup to adding an additional regular-season game. 

"The bigger concern is now we're going to add another game, even if you multiply everything out with sensible assumptions, there are going to be more injuries," a league source told CBS Sports in April. "And it won't just be hamstrings. There are going to be season-enders and next-season-enders in Week 18 and 19. That's the biggest sticking point on the field."  

One player, who requested anonymity, also told CBS Sports in April that some of the NFL's top stars could sit out games at the end of an extended 18-game season to charge up for the playoffs or to reduce the risk of injury. 

"The NFL's issue will be more related to getting top players to play in games beyond playoff contention, which I believe get exacerbated the more regular season games they play," the player told CBS Sports in April. "Top players will check themselves out more because games that don't matter late in the season will happen more often."

While Jones has been able to bring many major changes to his Cowboys and the league at large over the years, an expansion to an 18-game regular season may be a little more complicated than he thinks.