Don’t blink because the NFL will be back in less than two weeks.
Now that the Seattle Seahawks have been crowned Super Bowl champions, it’s on to the 2026 season. That’ll kick off with the annual scouting combine in Indianapolis from Feb. 23-March 2.
Free agency follows on March 9 with the two-day negotiating period. The annual league meeting begins on March 29 in Phoenix.
The 10 teams that hired a new head coach may begin offseason workout programs
on April 6. Other teams can start on April 20.
The NFL draft is in Pittsburgh from April 23-25.
Here are some of the NFL’s top upcoming storylines:
The league will play a record nine international games, including the first-ever regular-season games in Melbourne, Australia, Paris and Rio de Janeiro.
The San Francisco 49ers will face the division-rival Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a venue that holds about 100,000 spectators.
The Dallas Cowboys will be one of the teams playing in Rio. The league has played two other games in Brazil in São Paulo. The teams facing off in Paris haven’t been determined.
The other sites include three games in London, one in Madrid, one in Mexico City, and one in Munich.
The league is aiming to play 16 international games per season but it’s going to take negotiating with the NFL Players Association to make that happen.
“I think you have to look at a few things,” NFL executive Jeff Miller told the AP last week. “One is obviously our operations team needs to make sure that the markets where we could potentially play are good for us. That’s everything from the medical infrastructure to the hotels, to the practice facilities, and of course the surface, which has been a point of conversation. The travel back and forth matters. How are they going to be able to acclimate coming back? ... So we have to figure out from a scheduling perspective, knowing we’re only playing a game a week for the clubs, how that works in with the travel that’s necessary and the distances they have to go.”
David White, the union’s interim executive director, said players “appreciate a global stage” but the experience hasn’t always been great.
“Here’s the issue: They’ve got a lot of feedback about not having good experiences because it’s inconsistent,” White said.
It’s likely the league won’t get to 16 games internationally until they expand to 18 regular-season games, which is “not a given” according to Commissioner Roger Goodell.
“We’re only limited by the supply, not the demand,” Miller said about international games. “There’s huge demand internationally for NFL football to play games. If you expand to greater inventory, then maybe you’re at a place where every team can play a game internationally. That would be terrific for the group.”
Goodell pointed out player safety concerns, competitive issues, the potential need to add another bye and roster sizes as areas that have to be addressed through collective bargaining before the league could expand to 18 games. The current CBA between the NFL and its players’ union expires in 2030.
White said players have “no appetite” for expanding the schedule so conversations aren’t even imminent.
The NFL Competition Committee and teams are expected to propose several rule changes that would require the owners' approval.
Banning the tush push could be among those. Even though the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t have quite the same success running the play this season, officials had trouble officiating it. A proposal that bans pushing and pulling ballcarriers might get enough traction.
The league is exploring replay review to potentially include crackback blocks, low blocks/clipping, blindside blocks, intentional grounding (determine a receiver’s position on the field) and illegal formation on kickoffs (determine feet on the ground when the ball is touched).
Throwing a flag for penalties after reviewing video would be a significant change if it happens. Replay review currently only allows for picking up a flag that was incorrectly thrown.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
