Five NFL players could play 18 games this season and not get a bye week after being traded

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

Players who were traded from a team that did not have its bye week to a team that already had its bye week may go through the entire season without a week off. This year, five players have already played nine games on a team that did not yet have a bye and were traded to teams that still have nine games left after already having their byes.

Those players are Preston Smith (traded from Packers to 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 isn’t 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 in more games than any other NFL team, 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 18 games in a regular season was 1930. Now five more players can do it.