Packers: 17-game season is on the way, but not in 2020

NFL players have voted in favor of the new collective bargaining agreement, and that means there will be some changes to the season format in the coming years.

An immediate change is to the playoffs, with 14 total teams now making the postseason instead of 12. A change we won’t see immediately is a 17-game regular season.

According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, owners “will have a window from 2021 to 2023 to expand the regular season from 16 games to 17 games”, which Graziano notes is expected to happen.

So we don’t know exactly when a 17-game season will begin, and we also don’t know how it will work. For the Green Bay Packers and every other team, they will now have to play an uneven number of home and road games, which is confusing.

How would it be fair for the Packers to play eight home games and nine on the road, with a rival team hosting nine and playing eight on the road? Or the other way around, of course. Will each team’s 17th game be played at a neutral venue? Who will the 17th game be played against?

Bye weeks could also be an important topic. It’s now possible that a team could have Week 4 bye, have to play the extra game without additional rest and, if they make it to the Super Bowl, not get another break until the week of the Pro Bowl. The new playoff format giving only the top seed a bye week makes it even more challenging.

Giving teams a second bye week would make that easier to manage.

These are questions that need to be answered, which makes it somewhat confusing.

For the Packers, home-field advantage is so important at Lambeau Field. The benefit of playing a ninth game there would give them an advantage, but that could make it unfair on rival teams who don’t have the same benefit.

Change is on the way, but there are still big questions ahead.