The NFL's expansion to 17 regular-season games was controversial, given the potential impact it had on player safety. But the league isn't likely to stop there.

According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, "The push to 18 regular-season games hasn't been abandoned, health and safety concerns be damned."

Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry said during Tuesday's PFT Live that NFL teams were trying to push back the trade deadline by two weeks, with one week being added due to the expanded 17-game schedule and the other in anticipation of an 18th regular-season game eventually being added.

As Florio noted, "In talking to folks after that, I mentioned Berry's plan, with the anticipation of another game. The reaction was, basically, 'Yeah. That's coming.'"

And if the plan is to reach 18 regular-season games and two preseason contests, Florio wondered if going with 20 regular-season games and eliminating the preseason altogether might eventually follow.

The league office and team owners will inevitably follow the money, and there is plenty of demand for more NFL football. From a financial standpoint, adding another regular-season game makes sense.

But keeping players healthy was hard enough when the schedule was just 16 games. Players continue to get bigger, strong and faster. Collisions are more violent in the sport than they were 30 years ago. There are limits to what the human body can endure.

This year alone, quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, Deshaun Watson and Anthony Richardson, among others, all missed significant time. The NFL might want the profits that come from more regular-season games, but how compelling are those extra contests if backup quarterbacks like Zach Wilson, Jake Browning, Easton Stick, etc. are the ones primarily playing them?

Will NFL coaches eventually do the math, decide that giving superstar players like Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson an extra game off halfway through an extended regular season is worth keeping them healthy for the playoffs and create the NBA's version of the load management controversy?

The league could mitigate that by adding a second bye week to the regular season if it goes to 18 games. It would also make sense to tie the majority of Thursday night games to the week after a team has a bye, eliminating as many of the short turnarounds as possible.

These are all logical things to do on a human level. But ultimately, the league office and team owners will follow the money first and worry about player safety second. They've proved that time and time again.