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.

“No one wants to play an 18th game. No one,” NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell said Wednesday during the union’s Super Bowl week news conference. “Some guys don’t want to play 17 just given the toll it has on their body and the lack of time to recover. … Seventeen games is 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 form of negotiation (would take place).”

Based on comments NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has made over the last year when asked about a potential extension of the regular season from 17 to 18 games, one would get the sense that the 18th game is eventually coming.

Goodell hasn’t shied away from his desire to continue extending the reach of the game and feeding the ever-ravenous appetite of football fans, and thus, growing revenue for his bosses, the 32 owners of the NFL’s teams. In his State of the League news conference Monday, Goodell said formal negotiations on the matter have yet to take place but allowed that an 18th game remains a possibility.

Numerous NFL officials and team owners have expressed hope that the two sides could begin negotiations towards a schedule expansion and new collective bargaining agreement well before the expiration of this current labor deal, which runs through 2030.

Howell has spent the last year meeting with team owners and players alike to gauge their feelings on the matter. The rift between the two sides is wide, and he said that players are so opposed to the idea at this point that he and other NFLPA executives have yet to get an idea of what concessions players would want owners to make in exchange for extending their season.

“There are a variety of issues that hang off of the length of season before any form of negotiation,” he said. “So what are those? … You’ve got health and safety issues, recovery. You know, what does that mean in terms of numbers of bye weeks? What does that mean in terms of the offseason? What does that mean in terms of the complexion of the 18th game?”

Howell addressed how players and team owners agreed to increase the number of international games to 10 in the last CBA, and the NFL is now considering game destinations like Australia and India. He said players must consider how new international game destinations, benefits and healthcare fit into 18-game work rules.

“So what does that look like in terms of what’s guaranteed if you’re playing a longer season?” Howell asked. “And what does it look like in terms of what we were able to do for incentive packages for guys who make the 53-person roster? And, oh yeah, maybe that needs to be addressed: the roster size (and) the practice squad.

“Then we get to the economics. So if I’m asking my workforce to work more, it’s not as simple as ‘I’m going to fall back on the revenue split that currently exists.’… So there are so many dimensions that hang off of the length of the season.”

NFLPA president and Detroit Lions linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin echoed Howell by saying that in his discussions with fellow players, the consensus response is, “No way. No way we’re doing that. … Whenever anyone sees ’18th game,’ we get a little bit scared.”

Case Keenum, an NFLPA executive committee member and free-agent quarterback, added, “All of us here and all of our teammates back home, we all love playing football. Do we all wish our season would have been longer, you know, for other reasons? Yes. This time of year, though, the training room is pretty full. All of us are struggling to get our bodies back right.

“I know most of my teammates, we don’t feel really normal until July comes around in time for another season. So this is probably not the right time to talk about adding another game. You know, that’s a regular season for us. So it’s just as far as the health and safety goes, that’s a big issue for us.”

Austin Ekeler, a fellow executive committee member and a Washington Commanders running back, agreed, saying, “Expanding to 18 games is really outrageous to me. … There are other ways to expand revenue in a safer way just like we’re seeing with international (games). … Definitely heavily against an 18th game.”

A hard stance against 18 games doesn’t necessarily mean an extension to the season will not eventually happen. Reeves-Maybin said, “Nobody wanted 17 games,” but the players did, however, agree to move from 16 to 17 when the last CBA was agreed upon in 2020. The schedule expansion came after the union leaders felt comfortable with the concessions, which included an increase in revenue sharing, that NFL owners were willing to make.

The player leaders reiterated that far more discussions are needed before players feel comfortable with another expansion.

Other topics discussed involved improvements on the concussion front, where brain injuries decreased by 17 percent compared to the 2023 season. League and union officials believe increased use of specialized helmets and the modification of the kickoff combined to help decrease concussions.

“It’s encouraging to see just the efforts from both sides to try to figure out this issue,” Ekeler said, “because this is one of the major, you know, pain points for us when it comes to health and safety and this topic.”

Meanwhile, players remain adamant that the NFL needs to improve the consistency of playing surfaces. More than 90 percent of players prefer to play on natural grass fields because they believe grass is more forgiving and causes fewer injuries. However, only 15 NFL stadiums use a natural surface instead of synthetic turf. Howell said he expects discussions on this topic to continue closer to the CBA negotiation window.

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(Photo of Lloyd Howell: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)