Look for as many as two fewer preseason games and an 18-game regular season in the National Football League as early as 2010. That’s the word from Commissioner Roger Goodell.

The following are interview excerpts from Goodell's appearance radio on the "Dan Patrick Show":

Q: What’s the possibility of limiting preseason and expanding the regular season?

Commissioner Goodell: We’re doing a whole analysis of how we approach the off-season, including the preseason, and then the impact it has on the regular season. That goes for everything from the impact on the players themselves with respect to the injury rate, making sure that we do everything to minimize any potential injuries, but also making sure we improve the product. I’ve been on record that I think the quality of our preseason is not up to our standards, so there are things that we’re looking at to try to improve that. One of them is reducing the preseason games and potentially what we would do is add those preseason games and make them into regular season games so we still have a 20-game season. That’s one of the things that we’re analyzing.

How soon would you expand the regular season?

I think, realistically, we’re at least a year away if not two years away, but the likelihood is that it would all be incorporated into a new labor agreement and new media agreements, which don’t end until the 2011 year.

What are the negatives to adding a 17th or 18th regular season game?

I think the biggest negative is making sure that you don’t put your product on too much – in other words, that you don’t overexpose your product. One of the things that makes the NFL great is making each of these games important, significant and big events. I think that one of the things that has been a hallmark of the NFL is being careful on that. More is not always better, so we’ve been careful with that. We’ve been very judicious with respect to how we allocate our content to use in other ways.

What about the positives of adding another game?

The positive to it is that we have a 20-game season right now. We’re not actually expanding the season. What we’re doing is actually taking two preseason games that I don’t think are as attractive and converting them into attractive content and attractive games. This is what our fans want. I think more football is good for fans, and certainly higher-quality football is good for fans. So I think it’s actually a concept that has a lot of merit. I don’t believe we need four preseason games to get ready for the season any longer because, in large part, of what we do in the off-season.

If players were paid for preseason, would there be a different attitude toward preseason from their perspective?

I think there’s a misunderstanding here because they are paid. The reality is they get 60 percent of our gross revenues, and all of those preseason revenues are included in that calculation. They’re getting paid, so any increased revenue that we get by doing this, if there was, they would share six cents out of ten cents off the top. I think they’ve got a pretty good situation from that standpoint. So I believe they are getting paid – we’re just cutting the checks over a 17-week period rather than a 21-week period.

What is the reaction from the NFLPA on the possibility of expanding the regular season?

I haven’t raised this recently. In my prior discussions with the Players Association and with Gene Upshaw in particular, he had expressed interest in it. He would like to know how the players are going to benefit from it. As I stated just a minute ago, they would really benefit from this from the standpoint of the fact that they would get 60 percent of increased revenues. That’s to their advantage. I also believe that we would really engage in some serious dialogue here with respect to minimizing what happens in the off-season leading up into the preseason, and also, the likelihood is that this could, from a player’s standpoint, lead to expanded rosters. From a union standpoint, it’s not very often that you see new jobs being created in labor-management negotiations.

Is there a way to modify ticket prices for preseason games to be fair to fans?

That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re trying to say that by reducing the amount of preseason games we’ll make those remaining preseason games much more interesting and much more competitive. You’ll see the high-quality players playing because they’ll need to use that to get ready for the season because of the limited number of games. It will improve the quality not only in the preseason but also in the regular season, so we think this is a win-win for the fans.

Is 2009 or 2010 a fair timeframe for this? 

I think the likelihood really is 2010 at the earliest.

As reported by the Kansas City Star, many in the NFL support the change.

“It might make sense to go to 17 and three as a first step and see how that works,” [Chiefs chairman Clark] Hunt said before the Chiefs’ preseason game against St. Louis on Thursday night.

[…]

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” said quarterback Damon Huard. “The fans certainly love regular-season action. The only downside is if you have a team that is 2-13 or 5-11 and you have to play those last couple of games.

“Are those games worse than the fourth preseason game? Probably not, if you have superstars coming to town from the other team and they’re going to play.”

Hunt also brought up the fact that with fewer preseason games, player injuries in games that ostensibly don’t matter would be minimized. Since the the owners recently opted out of the current CBA, numerous issues must be negotiated with the Players Association in the coming months, and the details of the proposed schedule change would certainly be among them.

“The timing might work out very well,” Hunt said. “There is going to be lots of dialogue on a whole lot of issues, and this will be one. I would imagine the players might have different opinions on it as well."

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