Washington Commanders 18-Game Regular Season Schedule Coming Soon?

There's momentum starting to build behind the NFL making players compete in 18 regular season games.

Nov 5, 2023; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; Washington Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin (17) runs / Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

Players like Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels are a little more prepared to face the sometimes ugly 'business side' of the NFL.

With each new generation of players joining the league and rosters like the Commanders' there's more information handed back, more speeches, lectures, and mentors reaching out to young athletes trying to help them avoid the pitfalls of fame. More importantly, some are trying to help future generations capitalize on their relatively brief opportunities more than ever.

And it's a good thing that current Washington players have retired athletes to help them along the path toward life and on-field success, because, at the end of the day, the NFL is all about generating one thing above all else: Money.

Nov 5, 2023; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; Washington Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin (17) runs / Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

One way it can do that is by adding regular season games which sell more tickets and cost more for advertisers to run commercials during them.

The NFL got a 17th regular season game on the schedule starting in 2021 and agreed to reduce the amount of preseason games from four to three in the process. Currently, the same collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that authorized the 17th regular season game prohibits the addition of an 18th.

But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell may have a plan for that hurdle.

“I think we’re good at 17 now,” recently said on the Pat McAffee Show. “But, listen, we’re looking at how we continue. I’m not a fan of the preseason. I don’t think we need three preseason games. I don’t buy it. … I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular season any day. ... So if we got to 18 and two, that’s not an unreasonable thing.”

While Goodell's idea sounds reasonable on the surface it's certainly not without concern.

For one, starters, regular rotation players, and veterans especially won't like the idea of adding yet another game onto an already brutal schedule. In that vein, there's the talk of bye weeks and whether or not teams will get one in the first half of the schedule and another in the second, we'd imagine with at least a two to four game spread between them.

Could we see the NFL really give an NFL team a Week 4 bye week and then make them play 15 straight regular season games?

Then there are the practice squad players, the undrafted free agents, and the unproven third or fourth guys on the depth chart who would never get noticed if not for preseason games.

At the end of the day what's good for the bottom line is good for the NFL, and it's not the player's bottom line it's worried about. If the league and its owners want an 18th regular season game then chances are they'll get it.

And it's not likely a matter of if, but when.

Stick with CommanderGameday for more coverage of the Washington Commanders throughout the 2024 season.