Since a 17th game was added to the NFL regular-season schedule in 2021, the preseason was cut from four games to three, except for the two teams that play in the Hall of Fame Game — the Chargers and Lions this season — who will play four.
The Chargers will get 10 days off before they host the Saints on August 10, while Detroit has eight days off before they travel to Atlanta to take on the Falcons.
After the preseason ends, all 32 teams will get as many as a full week off before beginning the regular season (except Dallas and Philadelphia, who will meet in the traditional "Kickoff Classic" on Thursday night, September 4).
That's 36 days from the Hall of Fame Game to the beginning of the regular season.
The NFL can do better than that — and they will, when — not if — the league goes to an 18-game regular-season schedule.
In addition to (obviously) playing only two exhibition — oops, we mean preseason — games, the Hall of Fame Game can be played as the first game of "Week 1" of the preseason (always the first game played therein), rather than before the rest of league plays their first such game, thus chopping one week off the preseason schedule right there. A second week can be eliminated by having each team play their second preseason game on the Thursday through Sunday before Week 1 of the regular season, with the teams playing in the "Kickoff Classic" playing their Week 2 preseason games on Thursday night (along with some other teams as well). No more "bye week" before the regular season begins.
(The CFL, where every team plays two preseason games followed by 18 regular-season games, must play its two preseason games over a period of three weeks because that league has an odd number of teams; they also play 18 games over 21 weeks for the same reason, while the NFL is likely to play 18 games over 20 weeks once the time comes.)
A shorter preseason will mean later dates for players to report to training camps — a definite incentive for the NFLPA to want to support an 18-game schedule — and if the idle week between the conference championship games in the Super Bowl is done away with, the day after the Super Bowl will henceforth be Presidents' Day, and therefore a national holiday (this figures to happen in Super Bowl LXI, no matter what).
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