Five NFL players could play 18 games this season and get no bye week after trades

As the NFL ponders expanding the regular season to 18 games, five players can find out this year exactly what that feels like.

Players who were traded from a team that hasn’t had its bye week to a team that already had its bye week can go through the whole season without a week off. This year, five players have already played nine games on a team that didn’t have its bye yet and were traded to teams that still have nine games remaining after already having their byes.

Those players are Preston Smith (traded from the Packers to the Steelers), Za’Darius Smith (Browns to Lions), Khalil Davis (Texans to 49ers), Mike Williams (Jets to Steelers) and Jonathan Mingo (Panthers to Cowboys).

Last year Leonard Williams became the first player in the modern era to play 18 games in a season when he was traded from the Giants to the Seahawks and played in every game for both teams, without getting a bye.

In the modern era, playing 18 games in a season only became possible in 2021, when the NFL added a 17th regular season game and an 18th week to the season. But Williams is not the only player in NFL history to play 18 games in a season. In the early days of the NFL, schedules were not standardized and some teams played more games than others. From 1925 to 1930 the Frankford Yellow Jackets played more games than other NFL teams, and according to pro-football-reference.com, four Yellow Jackets players played in 19 games in a season, and another 11 Yellow Jackets played in 18 games in a season.

Before Williams, the last time an NFL player played in 18 games in a regular season was in 1930. Now five more players can do it.

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