Report: A 17-game NFL schedule is “highly likely” beginning with the 2021 season

We have reached March which means it is only a matter of time before all of our brackets are blown to smithereens and (hopefully) that there is some sort of resolution on the Dak Prescott contract extension saga.

As it is only the third month of the calendar year there is still a great amount of time between now and the next NFL season (only six or so months, but who’s counting). The trek through the offseason wilderness can often be a long one.

Ultimately, though, football always returns and with it 16 opportunities for the Dallas Cowboys to lift us up in euphoria or send us into the work week upset for another week. Now, it could be one more week. It was reported that this could be happening beginning with the 2021 season a few months ago, and it seems that this idea has picked up considerable steam.

A 17-game NFL schedule is “highly likely” according to report, the 17th game for the Dallas Cowboys would be at the New England Patriots

As the dust on the 2020 Dallas Cowboys season was starting to settle we noted who America’s Team would be playing in 2021. They notably have road trips to Tampa Bay and Kansas City among others. No big deal, just the two teams that played in the Super Bowl!

Something we mentioned in the opponent list for next season was a hypothetical 17th game. You see, when the new CBA was agreed to last year (it certainly feels forgotten over everything we have experienced since then), the NFL owners obtained the right to implement a 17th game into seasons starting with 2021. Guess where we are?

According to Peter King in the latest edition of his Football Morning in America column, the league seems intent on implementing the extra game starting this season. Where would that game come from you ask?

When we talked about this being a possibility for the 2021 Cowboys schedule we cited a report from Albert Breer that noted the extra game would rotate. A team, in this case the Cowboys, will play a team from a division in the opposite conference every year (obviously not the division that they are scheduled to play that current season) and match up against the same-place finisher much like they do with the other divisions from their own conference.

Sorting through that, the main point is that the Cowboys will likely play the New England Patriots this coming season as they both finished in the same place in their respective divisions. As the two East divisions are lining up this means that the Washington Football Team will play the Buffalo Bills, the New York Giants will play the Miami Dolphins, and the Philadelphia Eagles will play the New York Jets. According to King’s report it seems that the league is going to have all of the extra games take place at the home of the AFC teams in 2021. The NFC squads will host in 2022, so on and so forth.

Also according to King, the league will likely push everything back a week so the Super Bowl will now take place in mid-February as opposed to the first weekend (generally) of it. What’s more is that the NFL seemingly wants to have a Monday night Wildcard game during the first week of the playoffs. It is never fun or fair to have to play a Monday night game and then visit a team who had an extra day’s worth of rest on you. Imagine scratching and clawing through a Wildcard win only to visit the team who had the first-round bye and has had even longer to prepare to host you. Oh well.