AP

NFL Players Association president Eric Winston recently said he’d “never say never” to a potentially expanded regular season. On Sunday, Commissioner Roger Goodell said something a lot stronger than that.

Via Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Goodell told a fan forum in Minnesota on Sunday that expanding the regular season (and shrinking the preseason) are “on the table.”

The league hasn’t been saying much in recent years about expanding the schedule, ever since the proposal to add two regular-season games was shouted down amid concerns over player health and safety.

Still, as the NFL continues to send more and more games to other countries, the league eventually will need to increase the total inventory of contests, since some teams never will agree to play fewer than eight home games.