NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks out on changing the season to 18 GAMES

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke out on changing the league's regular-season schedule to 18 games, saying it's a good trade to give up preseason games for another one that counts toward a team's official record. 

Goodell has been publicly in favor of adding an 18th game to the NFL regular season before, but it is not up to him. That would need approval from a majority of the league's owners. 

Goodell said his top priority is to make the game safer, which some have said comes off hypocritical with the addition of a regular season game. 

Many teams sit their starters for the late preseason games, adding four more quarters of possible injuries for the league's biggest stars. 

'The key thing for us is looking at making sure we continue to do the things that make our game safer,' Goodell said. 'So we want to make sure that that hits the first boundary. Seventeen games is a long season, so we want to make sure we look at that and make sure that we continue the safety efforts.'

'... We would do it in the context of reducing the number of preseason games. We think that's a good trade,' Goodell continued. 'Less preseason games and more regular-season games. I think most anybody would think that was beneficial.' 

Goodell said the long-term efforts of the NFL is to give the fans what they want, and in his opinion that is more games that matter. 

The NFL added a 17th regular season game starting in 2021, with another jump possibly on the horizon. Adding an 18th week to the regular season did not allow for another bye week. 

Goodell opined about the league's future from the NFL spring meetings in Nashville. 

The Commissioner has also mentioned extending the NFL's regular-season schedule to 20 weeks, to give teams two bye weeks with adding another regular-season game. 

The 17th game added was a random opponent from a team's own conference that they were already not playing that season. 

Goodell has not stated who an 18th opponent would be, although two distinct possibilities exist 

Another game could be against one of the four teams from the division they do not already play during any season, or a random AFC team that any team does not already play.