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 gameMany 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.’
