Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says a seventeenth game for every NFL team is coming next year. Jones talked about the issue during an appearance on 103.5 The Fan in Dallas and said that he believes the league will make the change and add another regular-season gamer for each franchise. He also believes that the preseason game schedule will be cut from four to three.
“We play 20 games a year before we get to the playoffs (4 preseason, 16 regular season),” Jones said. “We’ve agreed with the players and the Players Association that we would increase the 16 to 17 games. … I could see lessening by a game every other year, and increasing the regular season by a game.” This was something that was talked about in league meetings earlier this year. In the plan, a team that has eight home games and nine road games in 2021 would get nine home games and eight road games in 2022. The same goes for the preseason as a team that has two home games and one road game in 2021 will flip the following year.
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Jones also answered the question of why didn’t the owners already approve a 17-game schedule. “(We) didn’t need to,” he said. “We’ve got several meetings ahead in the offseason, and it just wasn’t something we had to address. We wanted (everyone) to think about it more, and to think about if there are any nuances we could add to it. You’d be surprised (what you could come up with) when you invite the prospective from 32 teams.”
Earlier this week, the NFL announced it has delayed a decision on implementing a 17-game regular season for the 2021 season. The scheduling formula has been approved but a decision won’t be made until early next year. The NFL and the player’s union agreed to add one game to the schedule but not before 2021.
“We had a lengthy discussion on this. Obviously, it’s an important decision for us,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, as ESPN reported. “We did not take any votes with respect to committing to do it. In the collective bargaining agreement, we have that right to do it.” The NFL has been playing a 16-game schedule since 1978. Before that, each team was playing 14 games, which started in 1961.
