Mac Engel: NFL VP warns of growing calendar: 'There's a human body on the other side'

Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Feb 3, 2026

Published in Football

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ARLINGTON, Texas — The potential life-changing effects caused by CTE, or any other ailment associated with football, have not deterred America’s appetite to play or watch the game, which is why the NFL, NCAA and most likely your neighborhood high school are adding weeks to their respective seasons.

When there is this much money to be made, that possibility with always crush common sense, and makes the chance at a migraine, a broken bone or torn ACL worth the risk. It’s Super Bowl week in America, the final days of a football season that does nothing but grow.

Unlike basketball, baseball and hockey, all of which suffer from a self-inflicted lag as a result of too many regular-season games, football has not crossed that threshold.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s vision is for the league is 18 regular-season games, and the Super Bowl to be played the night before President’s Day, which would coincide as a holiday weekend. The NCAA’s calendar is not too far off already; its playoffs will end one week later in 2027 than it did in 2026, when the title game was played Jan. 19.

There is no such thing as ‘too much’ football

NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent was in Arlington in November to promote the East-West Shrine Bowl, and I asked him if this growth in the schedule is too much for the player.

“The factors that you have to take in, the body has a shelf life. Period,” he said. “The human body, and the data, will tell you that.

“It is a fundamental question that every parent, and every stakeholder in the game of football, you must ask, because it’s easy to say, ‘We want more games.’ Should you expand? Well, there’s a human body on the other side.”

Vincent’s life is football. He played in the NFL for 15 seasons, and served as the president of the NFL Players Association from 2004 to 2008.

“When you think about what’s ‘too much,’ it all goes back to, and we’re going through this now, ‘What does the actual calendar look like?’” he said.

Other than adding games, the calendar hasn’t changed that much.

In 2001, the Indiana Hoosiers team played 11 games. In 2025, the team played 16. Or, the same number of regular-season games the NFL played from 1978 to 2020. In 2021, the NFL’s regular season grew to 17 games, and it added another playoff round.

The NCAA season was normally 11 or 12 games, but thanks to conference title dates, and now an expanded playoff schedule, a team could play 17 games. Miami would have played 17 this season but avoided it only because of the ACC’s weird tiebreaker rules.

The Texas high school football state champions routinely play 16 games, 10 in the regular season and six in the playoffs.

As the games have been added, the start time has not. NFL teams still start practice in the final week of July. It’s been that way for decades. NCAA teams, and high schools, start around Aug. 1.

The NFL has reduced its preseason schedule from four games to three, and the ultimate future of those increasingly worthless exhibitions is likely one. Goodell has made it no secret he believes the preseason games don’t do anything; it’s also worth nothing the NCAA has no preseason games.

Until proven otherwise, there will be more football

The only dramatic change to the NFL calendar is the offseason, and the amount of practices, and contact, allowed according to the collective bargaining agreement between the league and players association.

“We know attrition is a part of the fabric of the game,” Vincent said. “Who you began with in Week 1 is not who you’re going to end with in Week 17. Same thing in college football. So that attrition will take place was too much. How does this schedule work? Do you have uniformity on what’s happening at BYU from a practice standpoint contact standpoint? Is that same thing occurring in Kansas, at Kansas State, at Texas Tech?

“Those are things that we’ve learned and had to monitor. You can’t leave it to the coach. A coach comes in and says, ‘Hey, I’m a new head coach. The reason why they brought me here because you all weren’t tough. So what do I do? I lean in more on the athlete on the physical side.’ It takes a toll.”

The assumption is adding all of these games has increased injuries. Depending on what injury study you read, the rate is mostly unchanged. Or, there has been a spike. Anecdotally, there has been an increase because more games, more hits, more injuries.

Throw in different playing surfaces, and schedules that feature fewer days off between games, and those variables alter the assessment of the effects on expanding the seasons.

While an injury study may be inconclusive, what is conclusive is that despite some pleas to not add games, the schedule will grow. The NFL’s current collective bargaining agreement with the players expires after the 2030 season, and the leaders that run NCAA football continue to tinker with a playoff format that will likely add one more potential game for some teams.

Whatever preferences the players have not to grow the schedule is usurped by their priority to grow their wallet.

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