Goodell Hints at NFL Teams Overseas — And Expansion to 40 Is on the Table
The Commissioner said 'there will be teams outside the USA' — plural. That single word points to expansion past 32 franchises, possibly to 40.
Expansion is years off — no roster impact for now, but track the ripple effects.
- Goodell: 'there will be teams outside the USA' — plural
- London already has 2 NFL-ready stadiums
- NFL–England relationship spans 20 years
- Long-term vision floated: 40 teams, 5 divisions per conf
- NFL last had odd team count from 1999-2001
The NFL Commissioner just said the quiet part out loud. Roger Goodell declared there will be teams — plural — outside the United States, and that one word reframes the entire conversation. This isn't about shipping a few regular-season games to London anymore. It's about franchises with foreign home addresses, and the math of getting there points straight toward expansion.
Here's why the plural matters. An odd number of teams forces at least one club into a bye every single week, which the league lived through from 1999 to 2001 after the Browns returned. To avoid that mess, you add two teams, not one — which nudges the NFL past its tidy 32-franchise, four-team-division symmetry for the first time in over two decades.
Why London, Not A Move
Relocation is basically off the table. The Jaguars, the usual suspect given their London ties, just locked in a new long-term lease alongside an active stadium renovation. No other franchise is a realistic candidate to pack up and cross an ocean. That leaves expansion as the path of least resistance, and London — with two stadiums already built for NFL football and a 20-year relationship with the league — is the obvious landing spot for both new clubs.
The structural fix could get creative. The simplest short-term patch drops one London team into the AFC East and the other into the NFC East. The grander vision floated is 40 teams total: five divisions per conference, each with its own international division. Picture a European bloc — two London sides plus clubs in Germany, Spain, or France — and a second group eyeing Brazil, Mexico, Japan, or Australia.
The Logistics Problem
Travel is the elephant in the room, and the league knows it. Reporting from November 2025 indicated the NFL is keeping tabs on the potential return of supersonic flight, which tells you how seriously they're wrestling with cross-continent schedules. There are countless other logistical hurdles, but Goodell's framing was clear: the question is when an ocean gets crossed, not if.
For fantasy purposes, this is a keep-an-eye-on-it story, not a lineup mover. Nothing changes for your 2026 roster, and expansion of this scale is years away at minimum. But the downstream effects — a diluted talent pool, new bye-week wrinkles, and eventual expansion drafts — will eventually reshape depth charts and waiver strategy. File it away, don't act on it. When actual franchises and rosters materialize, that's when the buy-and-sell calculus kicks in.
