18-game schedule – A key reason the NFL hasn’t announced a date for Super Bowl LXII may be tied to how quickly an 18-game regular season could arrive. With major bargaining talks still ahead, a 2028 target is looking more realistic than 2027.
The NFL still hasn’t set a date for Super Bowl LXII, and it’s not just a matter of calendar logistics. The timing may depend on a question the league and its players are working through: whether the regular season moves from 17 games to 18 — and when.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reported that a switch to an 18-game schedule in 2027 now looks highly unlikely. “A source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that it’s highly unlikely the season will expand to 18 games by 2027. ” Florio said. In his view. the current 17-game season setup — including one bye — points to February 13. 2028. as the date for Super Bowl LXII to be played in Atlanta.
Florio added that the exact date could still slide later if the league wants to make room for a longer season. “Unless and until the league announces that day as the date for the game, there’s still a chance it will slide deeper into the month to accommodate a longer season.”
That 2028 framing lines up with what Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reported last month about how the schedule change could unfold. Jones wrote that there is “little question” the next collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and its players will include an 18th regular-season game. He also placed the change at least two years away — with 2028 as the absolute earliest and 2031 as the latest — while describing it as something that will come with “considerable back and forth between the sides.”.
An 18th game isn’t just about the number of Sundays that get filled. Jones believes adding an extra regular-season game would allow the NFL to add an extra international game. and he noted that this is a goal the league spokesman confirmed last week. The business case. according to Jones. is significant: adding another game is expected to bring in around $1 billion in yearly revenue for the league.
If the league does move to an 18-game schedule, it would require changes to how teams prepare and how rest weeks are built. The plan would involve cutting the preseason from three games to two, and adding a second bye week.
Players, though, have been pushing back. Their central concern is injury risk, and the idea of fitting more games into a season has raised fears about how much strain the additional contest would place on bodies already operating under a grueling week-to-week schedule.
The pieces fit together in a way that makes the missed Super Bowl announcement feel less like delay and more like decision-making. A 17-game structure currently points toward February 13. 2028 in Atlanta. while the uncertainty around whether expansion can arrive by 2027 keeps the league from locking everything in.
For now, the date for Super Bowl LXII remains unsettled — and the next collective bargaining agreement looms as the real hinge. The NFL’s schedule could still change, but the window that’s starting to look most plausible is 2028, not 2027.
NFL Super Bowl LXII 18-game schedule 17-game season Roger Goodell collective bargaining agreement Mike Florio Jonathan Jones Atlanta February 13 2028 international games players injury concerns