Could the NFL’s 18-Game Season Ignite a Surge in Career-Threatening Injuries?

Is the NFL really ready to stretch its legs to 18 games, or is the whole debate just a fanciful touchdown dance around player safety concerns? As the league eyes a neat little revenue boost by adding just one more game—think more international matchups, potentially new broadcast deals, and yes, more chances for Friday Night Football—the real question lingers: will this extra clash on the gridiron truly pile up the injuries, or is it merely a perceived risk? We dove deep into the data from the last expansion from 16 to 17 games to see whether the fear of more injuries holds water—or if it’s yet another hustle in the NFL’s playbook to maximize the bottom line without tipping the injury scales too heavily. Spoiler alert: the numbers might surprise you. LEARN MORE

What’s standing in the way of an 18-game schedule? It’s the concern over player safety, but how much is it warranted? We looked at the last schedule expansion to find out.

Most believe it’s inevitable – that it’s just a matter of when.

The NFL remains a money-making machine. But there are only so many revenue streams to grow, only so many tickets to be sold and only so many TV deals to reach.

One area in which the league can add more profit is in expanding the schedule, but the NFL already knows that with more games comes the opportunity to expand the international portion of the schedule and potentially another broadcast deal.

It’s why the league increased from a 16-game schedule to 17 games starting in the 2021 season. It was the first major change to the format of the regular season since it expanded from 14 games to 16 in 1978.

So now, even though the NFL’s current collective bargaining agreement doesn’t expire until 2030, discussions about an expanded schedule have been going on for some time now. And it’s believed a new CBA could be worked out early to get the 18-game schedule implemented as soon as 2027. 

Will the two bye weeks that will likely come for each team with an 18-game schedule allow for games in Australia, the Middle East and India How about Friday Night Football to go along with Thursday Night Football?  

Would every team have to play an international game? Would the Super Bowl be moving back yet again, giving people the day off they’ve always wanted the next day?

Everything that brings in more revenue is on the table.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has already publicly stated that expanding the regular season to 18 games is a “logical step.”

“If we got to 18 and 2 (preseason games), that’s not an unreasonable thing,” Goodell said. “The other thing it does, (Super Bowl Sunday) ends on up Presidents’ Day weekend, which is a three-day weekend, which makes it Sunday night and then you have Monday off.”

What’s standing in the way? Well, there is that little issue of the NFL Players Association and its concern over the safety of its players.  

Many players have expressed opposition to a potential 18-game regular-season schedule for that reason. And there has been speculation the players are certain to do some negotiating with the league before agreeing to another game.

The extra bye seems likely to be one of those conditions, along with the reduction in the preseason slate from three games to two. But how much of a factor should player injury be in the discussion about an expanded schedule?

Goodell cited safety data that put concussions at a historically low level during the 2024 season in his Super Bowl press conference, while NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howard said during the association’s annual news conference: “We’re not sure how he’s reaching that conclusion based on the data we’ve been given access to.”

So what does the injury data tell us about the risk? Of course, adding another game means there’s one more opportunity for players to get banged up and increase the total number of injuries in a given season.

But in actuality, the difference in the number of players placed on injured reserve between 2017-20 (16-game seasons) and 2021-24 (17-game seasons) is marginal. The injured reserve list consists of players who are physically unable to participate in games.

The league leaders in that category were the New York Giants with 37 in 2017, Indianapolis Colts with 33 in 2018, Jacksonville Jaguars with 29 in 2019, Philadelphia Eagles with 32 in 2020. Aside from the outlier that was the injury-ravaged 2021 Tennessee Titans (48), the leaders have placed a similar number of players on the IR: Denver Browns/Titans with 36 in 2022, Houston Texans with 32 in 2023 and Carolina Panthers with 38 in 2024.

On the flip side, there were four teams that placed fewer than 10 players on IR in a single season between 2017-20 and three between 2021-24. Not much of a difference.

And there doesn’t appear to be evidence of a longer campaign leading to player health diminishing over the course of the season. 

A look at the four seasons prior to having a 17-game schedule and the first four seasons with it give a sense of the expansion’s impact on injuries. There were actually more players on injury reports per league game from 2017-20 (8.93 on average) than there were in the 2021-24 seasons (8.37) despite there being one more week of games on the schedule.

What about more serious injuries? Let’s take a peek at how many players were placed on the IR per league game across each season.

There has been an increase in the number of players placed on the IR per league game over the past four seasons at 39.9 compared to 38.2 in the four seasons prior to a 17-game schedule. However, a closer look reveals there hasn’t really been any indication of the numbers rising since 2021.

Despite the air of inevitability about the expanded schedule, there could be a bit of a standoff before we get there since Howell told ESPN that “no one wants to play an 18th game.”

“Seventeen games is already, for many of the guys, too long,” he added. “Seventeen games is also so lengthy that you’re still dealing with injuries going into the next season. So there are a variety of issues that hang off of the length of the season before any formal negotiations.”

But will the increased revenue for both the players and the league ultimately be enough of a motivator to get an agreement done in the next couple of years?

The bottom line is there aren’t likely to be more injuries on average in an 18-game season than there is during the current 17-game format. And when the NFL goes after something for the betterment of the shield, it usually gets it.

Research support provided by Stats Perform’s Jake Coyne.

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