Who will be the 17th opponent in an expanded NFL schedule?

I hear the NFL might expand into Ohio.

Perhaps Cincinnati or Cleveland will be awarded an NFL franchise; though it will be tough for either of them to knock Dayton and Akron out of the running.

Columbus already has a franchise *

The top two XFL teams *

The Washington Generals. *

The new team from London *

You mean the re-located Jags?

The Jags owner tried to buy Wembley for a reason...

Market is too saturated *

Clemson *

I wish they’d play the 17th game in college stadiums

But I have a feeling it’ll be either foreign locations, or potential expansion locations (St. Louis, San Diego, etc.). I find it difficult to believe that the NFL won’t expand by 2-4 teams in the near future, and it seems Europe is the NFL’s preference.

I've said there should be Rivalry Day at college stadiums

You can do it with most teams. There would be an annual game between a "rival" between an NFC and AFC team at neutral or college field. Most teams could be matched pretty easily. Others would be a challenge or a bit of misfit. For example:

Steelers/Eagles - Beaver Stadium in State College
Cowboys/Texans - U of Texas - Austin
Bears/Colts - Notre Dame
Redskins/Ravens - Univ of Maryland or UVA
Niners/Raiders - Cal or Stanford
Lions/Browns - Ohio St or Michigan
Chiefs/Rams - Univ of Missouri

Others you would have to force feed, but it could be made to work.

I think you mean geographical proximity to a university day.

None of the pairing you've proposed represent rivalries of any real significance.
Even geographical proximity doesn't hold water given the moves of the Rams and Raiders.

Unless you hate Eagles and Steelers fans, why would you

punish them by sending them to Happy Valley?

Especially since a large portion of Steeler fans are Pitt

fans and hate PSU.

I suspect it will be a game in europe or mexico *

They should shorten the pre-season then

and add an early and a late season bye that coincides with the extra game which I assume will be a "neutral" game overseas/non NFL domestic city. That way a team would get a bye week to make up for the extra travel.

I would think the players would be in favor of an extra off week to recover from a now even longer season.

I think that’s where it will end up *

The local paper says that the 17th game would be the only

way the Packers play in London. Up until now, the Packers have said absolutely "No" to playing any of their home games in London because of ticket demand and the impact on the local economy, and their road hosts have said "No" as well because Packers fans travel well and buy up lots of tickets.

This is just a guess

It will be another non conference rotating game based on divisional position. Ex: 1st in NFC Central plays 1st in AFC Central. 2nd plays 2nd, etc. All of these games would be neutral site (London, Berlin, Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, Vancouver) with some non NFL US sites thrown in (San Antonio, Orlando). I would not be surprised if the stadium in Vegas gets a extra game or two on non Raiders home weekends.

Good guess *