Roger Goodell finalizes four-year extension

The gist of it is that players can return to college if they are cut, but NFL teams cannot make advance deals with the players about returning in the following season and the players also cannot sign an NFL deal within the same season. This situation came up with undrafted rookie free agent Dae’Quan Wright, who spent the offseason with the Eagles and Browns, but is looking to return to college and play for LSU. From an NFL perspective, Wright can return to college for 2026 but cannot return to the NFL until 2027, nor can an NFL team agree to an advance deal with him to sign him in 2027. It’s a sticky situation as the NCAA figures out player eligibility but the NFL has said its piece on the matter.

We’re sad to see the Pro Bowl go, but this move has been several years in the making. Players consistently opted out of the event, forcing the league to name underwhelming alternates. Those who did play rarely took the game seriously. The NFL switched to a flag football format four years ago. This alleviated some injury risk for players but further separated the declining event from traditional football. Now the league will simply award 88 players across offense, defense, and special teams with the Pro Bowl designation. An in-person celebration of the Pro Bowl roster will be held in February.

Earlier this week, Front Office Sports’ Mark Maske reported that NFL owners expect to finalize a contract extension with Roger Goodell “in the coming months.” The current CBA runs through March 2031, but the NFL is negotiating new broadcast deals and is apparently hoping to install an 18-game schedule during the current CBA. Keeping the commissioner in place makes sense in that regard.

Goodell’s current contract will expire in March 2027. According to Maske, who said he spoke with “four people familiar with the owners’ views,” Goodell’s next contract will keep him in place as the league negotiates new broadcasting deals and a CBA expected to include an 18th regular-season game. Goodell will be 68 when his current contract expires and has served as the NFL’s commissioner since 2006. While we don’t know the exact timeline for a deal, Maske did say that “it does not appear there are any major stumbling blocks” in the way for an extension eventually getting done.

The league announced in May that Washington, D.C., would be the host site for next year’s draft. Now, the league has announced that the three-day event will kick off on Thursday, April 29th, and conclude on Saturday, May 1st, with the National Mall serving as the primary backdrop for the weekend. This will be the first draft the Nation’s Capital has hosted since 1941 when it was hosted at the Willard Hotel.

League officials, according to Florio, are “still holding out hope” that they can tack on yet another game to the NFL regular season, but time is running out before the league must schedule the Super Bowl in early 2028. NFL players and the players union have pushed back against the idea of another regular season extension, citing player safety. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has acknowledged this in statements on the potential for an 18-game season. “One, safety has to be the primary concern, right?” Goodell said in late April. “If you can’t do it safely for our players, we’re not gonna do it. And that’s why I would say it’s not inevitable.”

Any concerns about replacement referees can be laid to rest, as the league and its officials finally agreed to a deal ahead of the May 31st expiration date of the current deal. Included in the new agreement, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, is a “joint commitment with the officials to improve performance and increase accountability,” which will include “increased access to officials in the offseason, development of a ‘bench’ of officials, and a new formal training program” that will include minicamps, training camps, and joint practices. The deal was approved with a 116-4 vote, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

These replacements will undergo training next month to be ready to officiate offseason practices in June. According to the memo obtained by Pellisero, the league reiterated that it “remains committed to reaching a fair and reasonable agreement with the NFL Referees Association but will be fully prepared should the current agreement expire” on May 31. While Goodell and the rest of the league certainly don’t want actual games to be reffed by replacement officials, the league and the NFLRA are seemingly at an impasse in their negotiations. It’s unclear if they will get a deal done before Week 1.

In the most recent meeting between the league and the NFLRA, “several owners” joined the league’s negotiating team, per Seifert. The league and the NFLRA continue to work toward hammering out a deal before the current deal expires on May 31st. The league is already laying the groundwork for replacement referees should a deal not be reached in time before the start of the season, and is expected to begin training said replacements in May if no deal is in place. Hopefully the latests meetings are a sign that things are moving in the right direction, but given the massive gap in salary demands between the league and NFLRA, we won’t rush to assume a deal is close to being signed.

In hopes of avoiding replacement refs 2.0, the league will again come to the table with the NFLRA. The league rejected the NFLRA’s latest proposal shortly before last week’s league meetings in Arizona, with reports that a major source of contention stems from the annual salary increase. Per a report from earlier in The Athletic, the league sought to increase the annual salary by 6.45 percent under the next CBA, while NFLRA is eyeing “an annual increase of more than 10 percent.” That’s a massive gap to close in such a short time, but we’ll see if this latest return to discussions results in a deal in the days/weeks ahead.