NFL 18-Game Plan: Final Two Weeks Less Competitive
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- The NFL's next CBA is expected to add an 18th regular season game — earliest 2028, latest 2031 — while cutting one preseason game and adding a second bye week, with revenue gains north of $1 billion to be split between the sides.
- CBS Sports research found that 53% of NFL regular-season games over the past 10 seasons finished within 8 points, but that figure dropped to 47.6% in the final two weeks of the season, when divisional matchups dominate.
- Roger Goodell dismissed tanking as a concern, saying the competition committee in Indianapolis "didn't even discuss" it, while one NFC executive countered that "tanking exists but not to the extent in the NBA."
- The NBA's current stretch run was recently described as the least-competitive month in the association's 80-year history, with playoff teams essentially locked in since the February trade deadline as bottom-feeders jockey for draft position.
- No NFL team has ever been punished for tanking — the 2023 Commanders' eight-game closing slide with fifth-round rookie Sam Howell delivered the No. 2 pick and Jayden Daniels, and last season's Raiders went 3-14 en route to Pete Carroll's firing.
- The 2025 NFL season produced 73 games decided by 3 or fewer points (tied for the most in league history), a record 5 wins by teams trailing by 15-plus in the fourth quarter, and three worst-to-first division turnarounds — figures Goodell cited to argue the league is as competitive as ever.
Why it matters: The NFL sells itself on parity, and the 2025 season's 73 one-score games and three worst-to-first flips are the league's proof points. But CBS data shows the final two weeks already run less competitive than the rest of the slate, and the NBA's current tanking spiral illustrates what a longer schedule can do when playoff stakes evaporate early. The next CBA's design — playoff seeding changes, the second bye, and whether the 18th game is divisional — becomes the structural lever for protecting the late-season product.
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