NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
PHOENIX – Robert Kraft, the visionary who bought the New England Patriots in the 1990s and turned them into an NFL dynasty, reflected on the future of the NFL when he spoke to reporters Monday.
Kraft, he definitely got it, would like to see a future NFL that plays 18 regular season games, plays only two preseason games, includes two bye weeks and, yes, has each team play one of its games internationally.
So there it is … the NFL’s dream scenario for the 2030s.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Robert Kraft Sees NFL Change
“I like the long term in the growth and development of the league because, to keep our league healthy and increase the revenue, I think the preseason games would be the same as before when we owned the team,” Kraft told reporters in New England during a break in the annual meeting of the NFL. “And moving to 18 games and having that real content and paying attention to player safety, I’d like to see us have a second bye week.
“However, it will allow us to expand the game internationally. Every team in the league will play a game overseas … I think it would be more exciting for the fans to have an extra game rather than having our pre-season games piled up.”
This is not a daydream. It’s a league desperate for growth and money to build a bathroom on top of its already lofty top in American sports.
And we know this because commissioner Roger Goodell leaked a similar proposal to Kraft’s draft on drugs and alcohol a few years ago — usually before offering the necessary amount of restraint to lower expectations.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Photo: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
The NFL’s Vision is for Tomorrow, Not Today
“We’re not there yet,” Goodell said before Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”
NFL owners are apparently doing some of that work in the current meetings. So the article goes out to the media.
Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon wants an 18-game regular season and made that point clear when speaking with local Indianapolis reporters and during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show.
He has previously complained that 17 games do not give teams financial certainty every year, because some years teams play eight home games and others play nine and in other home games they go overseas.
“I think, as long as the players want it — which I think they would, because it would mean more money and, ultimately, a better product — I think it’s reasonable and something we can work on,” Irsay-Gordon told the Indianapolis Star.
Adding an 18th game would have to be negotiated with the NFL Players’ Association. And the NFLPA for the past few years has strongly opposed the addition of the 18th game.
But the same NFLPA has never strongly opposed more money and player benefits. And there has never been any outcry when the idea of expanded programming, meaning more multiplayer activities, has been taken.
Owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon of the Indianapolis Colts. (Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
International Games A Work In Progress
So, do you smell job interviewing?
Speaking of speculation, one agent told OutKick that negotiations could begin with the idea that the NFL wants one more game. Then players get an extra bye week, expanded rosters, a higher minimum wage, bigger post-retirement benefits and more time off during the season.
Beyond the extra game, putting 18 of them overseas – twice as many as planned for 2026 – sounds easier than it really is.
“We’re at the beginning of this process,” said NFL vice president Peter O’Reilly. “We grow every year, we learn every year. We enter new markets and we make sure that everything we do, every new market we enter must be successful.
“It is clear that there is a lot of work to be done to get to the stage you described. I think the job we are doing is to make sure we have the right foundation in case that opportunity exists.”
