<P> In its early years after 1920, the NFL did not have a set schedule, and teams played as few as eight and as many as sixteen games, many against independent professional, college, or amateur teams . From 1926 through 1946, they played from eleven to fourteen games per season, depending on the number of teams in the league . From 1947 through 1960, each NFL team played 12 games per season . The American Football League began play in 1960 and introduced a balanced schedule of 14 games per team over a fifteen - week season, in which each of the eight teams played each of the other teams twice, with one bye week . Competition from the new league caused the NFL to expand and follow suit with a fourteen - game schedule in 1961 . </P> <P> Also in 1961, the U.S. Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act in response to a court decision which ruled that the NFL's method of negotiating television broadcasting rights violated antitrust laws . The law allows the league to sell the rights to all regular season and postseason games to the networks, but prohibits the league from directly competing with high school and college football games . Since high school and college teams typically play games on Friday and Saturday, respectively, the NFL cannot hold games on those days until those seasons generally end in mid-December . </P> <P> From 1961 through 1977, the NFL schedule consisted of fourteen regular season games played over fourteen weeks, except in 1966 . Opening weekend typically was the weekend after Labor Day, or rarely two weekends after Labor Day . Teams played six or seven exhibition games . In 1966 (and 1960), the NFL had an odd number of franchises, so one team was idle each week . In 1978, the league changed the schedule to include sixteen regular season games and four exhibition games . From 1978 through 1989, the sixteen games were played over sixteen weeks . </P> <P> In 1990, the NFL re-introduced a bye week to the schedule, which it had not had since 1966 . Each team played sixteen regular season games over seventeen weeks . During the season, on a rotating basis, each team would have the weekend off . As a result, opening weekend was moved up to Labor Day weekend . The league had an odd number of teams (31) from 1999 to 2001 . During that period, at least one team had to be given a bye on any given week . For the 1993 season, the league experimented with the schedule by adding a second bye week for each team, resulting in an 18 - week regular season . In 2001, the September 11th attacks resulted in the league postponing its week 2 games, leading to another 18 - week season . </P>

When did the nfl change to a 16 game schedule