Here’s how 18-game schedules could work for NFL, fans, players, everyone

The biggest concern about moving to an 18-game schedule is obviously the wear and tear concerns of the talent, the actual product fans pay to watch.

More and more, Super Bowl contender pools are about the war of attrition than merely the best collection of cohesive talent. Teams on the fortunate end of the injury equation tend to have what is necessary to move forward deep into the playoffs.

“Next man up” is a myth coaches tell their backups as motivational tools; losing key players hurt.

An additional bye is an absolute necessity, but it has to be handled strategically. Here’s how.

The additional bye week can be used to take advantage of one of the biggest wastes in the NFL: the Pro Bowl. No other sport relegates their All-Star event to an afterthought like pro football. Why hide your all-stars at the tail end of the season?

Instead move the Pro Bowl to in the middle of the regular season like every other league. That builds in the second bye week for 95% of the players in the league and allows the league to have an entire rest week without losing a complete week (yes, it will be a dip) of revenue.

But won’t players opt out in order to get the rest?

Yes, unless it becomes more financially lucrative for them to participate.

Increase the number of events, lower the number of invites. Make it really worth it for players not to skip by offering up to $325,000 per player who participates (not just show up); $75,000 per-event participation, $100,000 bonus for doing the maximum three events.

The best time to host the Pro Bowl would be Week 13. This allows voting to go on for six weeks, from Week 5 through Week 10 with nominees being announced in Week 11, allowing two weeks of signing up for individual events and promoting the actual participants.

Players would be required to fly into town on Wednesday for opening ceremony events and a media party on Thursday, and athletic events Friday through Sunday afternoon. Players fly back out to their home cities that evening and go back to work on Tuesday, still having had a break from on-field collisions and a lot richer.

An additional bye week for everyone is just part of the equation, as teams would still get their rotating bye week throughout the season.

All 32 teams would have a bye week in one of two windows; Weeks 6 through 10 and Weeks 15 through 17. There would be no bye weeks during the two weeks before the Pro Bowl or the week after, and there would be no bye weeks during the final three weeks of the regular season, Weeks 18 through 20.

To help offset a long stretch for a handful of teams, Thursday night games would be used as a mini-bye in the opposite end of the schedule for teams that have early or late bye weeks.

• Week 6 and Week 7 bye teams (8) have Thursday games in Weeks 16,17, 18 and 19
• Week 15, 16, 17 bye teams (12) have Thursday games in Week 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
• The other 12 teams have Thursday games in Weeks 1-3, and Weeks 14, 15 with two Thursday games on Weeks 3 and 14.

As it stands, No. 1 seeds have a ridiculous number of advantages over the field. That should be trimmed down some. In every year since a seventh seed has been in play (2021), the presumptive eighth seed would’ve had at least nine wins. They deserve a shot at the playoffs as well, and of course another game feeds the cash-hungry NFL monster.

Add an eighth seed and the No. 1 team should still prevail with home-field advantage, but yes make them earn the trip to the divisional round too.

The week off allows for every team to get some must-needed rest following the regular season, especially those teams that have to work all the way until Week 20 to earn their spot.

One of the biggest gripes that makes sense only from the perspective of being gracious to the NBA is that the Super Bowl isn’t a national holiday. Okay, so schedule it on the holiday weekend.

If the 18-game schedule was in place this year, with all of these changes, the two-game exhibition schedule would be on the weekends of August 3-4 and 10-11. Week 1 of the NFL season would be August 18-23. Week 20’s Sunday would be January 5.

Wild-card weekend would be Thursday, January 16 (1 game), Saturday, January 18 (3 games, Sunday, January 19 (3 games) and Monday, January 20 (1 game).

Let the team with the best record play in the Thursday slot and everything else can fall into place.

This seems like an eventual move to help increase revenue for the league, so why not add it with this schedule lengthening? An entire brand new billion-dollar deal awaits.

Obviously teams that play on Tuesday can’t turn around and play the following Sunday, so scheduling these could be done in the same manner as international games. Teams would have a mandatory (no longer let them opt out) bye the following week.

All of these changes gives the NFL multiple additional avenues for revenue:

• 2 additional weeks of NFL contests for their broadcast packages
• An additional broadcast package for Tuesday night contests across up to 19 weeks
• Two additional wild-card games every year with a 1 vs 8 matchup in each conference
• Bigger Super Bowl parties with most of the US now having Monday off
• In-season Pro Bowl increases fan interest