Two decades ago, the NFL began hosting a single regular-season game in London, England, to expand its reach into new countries and spread the sport of American football worldwide.
Every game since the first has been sold out, regardless of how terrible the matchup has been, and the league has continued expanding, giving London three games every year, along with going abroad to Spain, Germany, and even Brazil.
Now, as we enter the 2026 campaign, there are even more international games, with France getting one (hey, at least it’s the New Orleans Saints) and Australia getting a heavyweight matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers.
Hooray?
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What started as a blip on the NFL calendar has now grown into something that can’t be ignored, as over half the weeks of the season will now contain an international game.
We’ve reached the point of no return for the NFL, and the ludicrous nature of these games has to stop. If we’re getting to the point where Mars might host a game in the next decade, the NFL either needs to cut down on the international games or bull the bandaid off.
If the NFL wants international games, fine, expand the season two more weeks, so there are 19. We keep teams playing 17 games, but now teams have two bye weeks every season, allowing franchises to better care for their players and avoid the toll of a full NFL campaign.
And if you want your international games? There you go. Each of the 32 franchises will play in a different country during the season. 16 international games, no designated home team, and then each team will go back to having eight games at their home venue and eight away.
No more lopsided schedules with teams giving up home games to play in a market where the other team might have more support.
We’re already heading towards 16 global games a year, so why not just do it now, give the players an extra bye week, and stabilize the playing fields by no longer saying the Chiefs are the home team in Berlin?
The international games aren’t going away, so let’s cut out the glacial middleman of adding another country every year and fix it before it becomes a parody of itself.
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