We have heard the continued discussions from the league about shortening the pre-season, and the possibility of lengthening the regular season, but nothing has yet been formally decided.
Looks like that might come to the table soon though... as this article points out, 2012 might see an 18 game regular season.
NFL owners have informally discussed the possibility of expanding the regular season to 18 games (an idea we continue to hate, because 16 is just perfect). But there has been very little talk of just when this would take place.
A league source familiar with the inner workings of the scheduling situation tells us there is a growing consensus that an expanded season would be introduced in 2012.
Why then? Because next year is out, it being (for now) the final year of the labor agreement. Because of the possibility of a lockout (barring successful negotiations in the coming months) in 2011, that's not a suitable year either.
So next in line is 2012, assuming the labor issues have been resolved.
And when might owners approve such a measure? Potentially as early as their fall meetings. It's not a lock, by any means, but if there are enough votes to approve it by then, it could happen.
We ran this past someone in the NFL office who told us there is nothing concrete, and that 2012 is "just a guess." But we trust our source on this one, because he's intimately involved in the schedulding issue.
Very intersting stuff. I wonder if the owners would be willing to go along with this. It is ultimately about the money (revenue), so this will definitely be interesting to follow...