5. More regular season, less preseason
Under the new CBA, the NFL will expand the regular season to 17 games, which will effectively begin no sooner than 2021. You have to wonder how the NFL will address the odd number of regular-season games — which teams get an extra home game and which don’t. But they’ll likely trade off every year.
Conversely, the NFL will lower the number of preseason games from four to three. The preseason changes would also go into effect no sooner than 2021, which will give players fighting for roster spots one less game to prove their worth.
While Matt Nagy rested his starters for the entire preseason in 2019, other teams have given their starters time to get back in the swing of things. You’d figure the second preseason game would serve as the “dress rehearsal” game, while the third game would be for the players fighting for roster spots.
This will likely mean an earlier start to the regular season (first week of September), but the length of the preseason/regular season will remain the same.