NFL Owners Vote To Add Game 17; The 49ers will face the Bengals in 2021



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On Tuesday, NFL owners approved the vote to officially extend regular season games from 16 to 17 starting this season.

The 17-game season was part of a new collective agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association, which was ratified last March. The incorporation of the extra game comes exactly 44 years after the NFL adopted the 16-game schedule of the 14 games previously arranged in 1977.

The season will now feature 272 games (up from 256), with each of the league’s 32 teams playing 17 games over an 18-week period with a standard Bye week. Given the expansion of the regular season, Super Bowl LVI will now be pushed back a week later, from February 6 to February 13, 2022.

Additionally, with Game 17 added, the standard four-game preseason has been reduced to three games.

It is worth noting that the league also plans to take this new game inventory internationally in the future. The 32 teams will play internationally at least once every eight years starting in 2022.

“This is a monumental moment in NFL history,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. “The ABCs with players and the recent media deals allow us to improve the quality of the NFL experience for our fans. And one of the benefits of every team playing 17 regular season games is the possibility for us to continue. to develop our game around the world. “

So what does this mean for the 49ers? With the addition of Game 17, the 49ers will now add a road game against the Cincinnati Bengals to their list of regular season games in 2021.

According to the league formula, Game 17 will be between two interconference teams that faced each other two seasons before and finished in the same place in their own division the year before.

This year, the AFC teams received the extra home game. Home games will alternate conferences each season.

In addition to San Francisco’s divisional opponents (Arizona Cardinals, Los Angeles Rams, and Seattle Seahawks), the 49ers will also face the NFC North and AFC South in 2021. The 49ers will also see the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles, both teams also finished last in their respective divisions last season. Click here to see the full details of the 2021 49ers’ opponents.

The official 2021 schedule, with dates and times of play, will be announced later this spring on NFL Network, NFL.com and 49ers.com.

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