“No one wants to play an 18th game. No one. Seventeen games is already, for many of the guys, too long. Seventeen games is also so lengthy that you’re still dealing with injuries going into the next season. So, there are a variety of issues that hang off of the length of the season before any formal negotiations.””

If Roger Goodell intends to push to expand the NFL's regular season to 18 games, he's going to have to go through the NFL Players Association to do so, and it's going to be an uphill fight.

An 18-game NFL regular season isn't a slam dunk. NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell pushed back on it Wednesday even though NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has openly talked about it as if it's inevitable.

NEW ORLEANS — Leaders of the NFL Players Association made it clear Wednesday that adding an 18th game to the NFL’s regular season is still a non-starter for the majority of the roughly 2,000 players on NFL rosters.

NEW ORLEANS — NFL players don’t want the league to add an 18th game to the regular-season schedule. “When I have talked to players over the last two seasons, no one wants to play an 18th game — no one,” NFLPA president Lloyd Howell said Wednesday. “Seventeen is already, for many of the guys, too long.”

While the NFL talks about an 18th regular season game as a foregone conclusion, the NFLPA says, 'Not so fast.'

Just a little over three years after the NFL instituted a 17-game regular season schedule, there’s been plenty of talk about adding an 18th game in the future.

The majority of NFL players are against playing an 18-game regular-season schedule, NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell told reporters Wednesday in New Orleans.

The NFL and its owners seem to favor an eventual move to an 18-game season. The players, on the other hand, don't appear to be interested in such a