(RADIO.COM Sports) When someone who has been around the NFL for as long as Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has makes a predictive statement regarding the league, there's probably some accuracy to it.
About a week after Jones shared his belief that the NFL will add a 17th regular-season game in 2021 while cutting the preseason schedule down, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL.com reported that's expected to be the case.
The move, Rapoport and Pelissero reported, would generate new revenue for the league and "could at least slightly soften an anticipated drop in the salary cap" for 2021, which is expect to come as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the long-criticized four-game preseason would be cut down to two or three games, as Jones previously suggested.
The official announcement might not come for months due to the current CBA's terms regarding media contracts, but NFL teams are "all anticipating it's going to happen," a source told NFL.com.
The salary cap situation regarding the addition of a 17th game was a focus of the NFL.com report:
"The cap is still likely to drop significantly in 2021, per sources, but the 17th game as part of a new media deal could boost it above that $175-million floor. The union's share of all revenue already was set to bump up from 47 percent to 48 percent in 2021, and the move to 17 games with a new media deal triggers a "media kicker" on top of it that further increases players' share."
Seventeen games is the maximum number that would be allowed, per the CBA, and there has been support for this idea coming to fruition sooner than later in past owner meetings. The pandemic has "increased the urgency of the situation" for both sides to turn this idea into reality, Rapoport and Pelissero reported, and it seems as though the 2021 schedule will see a change as the result of that urgency.
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