The NFL continues to reign supreme as the country’s most prominent sports league, and part of the reason is its ability to evolve with the times. From rule changes to expansion teams to an extended regular season, much has changed over the years. That includes the exhibition games before the ones that actually count, so we’ve shared how the NFL preseason works and its history. 

The Foggy Early Days

Right from the beginning of the NFL, there were preseason games. The true regular season games were never officially designated as such, so all games were simply exhibition matches.

The league realized that they finally needed to have a distinction between games that counted towards the standings and which ones didn’t. As we know, the NFL consists of two leagues – the AFC and NFC. Following the first year of the NFL in 1920, it was games between the two leagues that were considered games that counted.

While that certainly seems straightforward now and the only ones we see, back then, there would be games against other entities outside the NFL itself, including the AFL amateur leagues and college teams.

Finally Establishing a Standard

An official format wasn’t put in place until over a decade into the NFL’s existence. It was a 12-game standardized schedule in the 1930s, and it was three decades later that the league went to a 14-game schedule.

Of course, we focused on the preseason, but interestingly enough, exhibition games back then were not always played before that scheduled format. Exhibition games were played during bye weeks and as late as December. So, while a regular season format was established, the preseason was still very unformatted.

Formatting a Set Preseason & the Merger

Finally, in 1966, we saw the first iteration of the preseason that fans today are familiar with. There would be four set exhibition games taking place before the games of the season that counted towards the standings.

However, the standard didn’t last, given the merger of the NFL and AFL just four years later in 1970. There had been just nine NFL teams before that, but with the immediate increase, an increase in preseason games was also put into place. It’s quite the opposite of what we’ve seen recently, but it was bumped up to six preseason games for the next seven years.

Following the seven years with that format, we would finally see one that would last a significant amount of time. From 1978 to 2019, the NFL went from six to four preseason games.

The Modern-day Preseason

If you’re familiar with the current preseason format, you may be wondering how the four-game format lasted until 2019. While they implemented the three-game format in 2021, the short gap is considered a strange period with an uneven number of games thanks to things like the Hall of Fame Game to kick off the new season.

So, as mentioned, we indeed have just three preseason games currently, which began in 2021. That was thanks to a new collective bargaining agreement that extended the regular season by an extra game. In other words, the Players Association and NFL agreed to add another meaningful contest in exchange for an exhibition game that did not count in the long run.

With the emphasis on player safety and money always being a factor, we may see another preseason change in the future, but for now, we currently have three preseason games before the first regular season matchup.