As this season winds to its riveting finish, the NFL already is reviewing ways that future seasons could be modified and improved.

The league’s competition committee met Friday at NFL headquarters in New York specifically to discuss the effects of going from a 16-game regular season to a 17- or 18-game regular season, a league official confirmed Monday.

The competition committee debated how a longer regular season would impact the trading deadline, when training camps would open, and all types of competitive issues.

The NFL already has launched a full ongoing internal analysis on what the longer regular season would do to all aspects of the game. It knows it is working with 20 games – currently 16 in the regular season, four in the preseason. But it wants to maximize the use of those 20 games.

One of the options is 17 regular season games and three preseason games; another is 18 regular-season games and two preseason games.

The league believes there are many positives to the different plans. There also are many viewpoints. There are many who support change. But the league still is a long way from anything being approved.

Conversations are expected to continue throughout the offseason, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is determined to do whatever he can to improve the game, studying every possible way to do it.

One is to lengthen the regular season.

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