The handwriting is on the wall. NFL owners want to eventually expand the regular season from 17 games to 18. The owners usually get what they want, so it seems like a matter of when, and not if, we see an expansion.
The current collective bargaining agreement runs through 2030, but NFL owners, officials and leaders of the NFL Players Association have already begun very preliminary discussions on what an 18-game season would look like and what kinds of concessions each side would have to make to facilitate such a change. But the two sides are nowhere close to hammering out an agreement.