Aaron Rodgers’s International Games Plan Has No NFL Support

There is virtually no support among NFL management and team owners for Aaron Rodgers’s suggestion that the league should hold all its international games during a single week of play, sources tell Front Office Sports. “You’d be competing against yourself” on the international games by playing them during the same week of the season, one source familiar with the sport’s collective bargaining process told FOS, adding: “It’s a nonsensical concept.” The sources also rejected Rodgers’s portrayal Sunday that such an arrangement was considered during the labor negotiations that led to the 2020 CBA between the league and the NFL Players Association. The quarterback said there was “talk” of it at that time. But such an arrangement was never discussed during formal bargaining, the sources said. “That’s bizarre,” one source told FOS. “I’m quite sure we never talked about a 16-game season with two byes and 16 international games in one week.” The NFL is playing a league-record nine international games this season. They are being played in nine different weeks of the season. The 49ers and Rams played in Melbourne on a Thursday night (Friday morning in Australia) in the season’s opening week. The Ravens and Cowboys played in Rio de Janeiro in Week 3. That was followed by a game in London on each of the next three Sundays. The Steelers and Saints played last Sunday in Paris in Week 7. There are games to come in Madrid in Week 9, in Munich in Week 10, and in Mexico City in Week 11. The CBA completed in 2020 allowed the league and owners to increase the regular season from 16 to 17 games.