NFL may expand playoffs to include Friday and Monday night games

During an appearance on the NFL Network, Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league’s playoff format could be expanded to include 14 teams and additional games on Friday and Monday nights.

The new format, which could debut in the 2015 season, would need to fit in two additional games on wild card weekend.

“The big discussion would be the first weekend, the wild card weekend of the playoffs, how would you structure that? Three on Saturday, three on Sunday? We’re looking at every alternative, and I think that’s what the membership ultimately is going to have to decide,” Goodell said. “Would you play a game on Friday night, two on Saturday, two on Sunday and another on Monday?”

Although the idea of more Monday Night Football games seems logical enough, the prospect of Friday night games in the NFL is somewhat odd. But the prospect of Thursday Night Football was also strange at first and that has quickly become a staple of the NFL season.

“I would be surprised if it happens this year. I think if it happened it probably wouldn’t happen before ’15,” Goodell said.

Either way, as the NFL has shown in the past with its now annual games in London, if there is a chance for expanded revenue, the league will take it. Two more playoff games would mean two more chances to make money, chances that the NFL will likely end up taking.

[Pro Football Talk] [Sports Illustrated]