The 2026 World Cup wrapped up with Spain and Argentina battling through a grueling final, but the NFL third-place game conversation exploded after England’s 6-4 win over France in Saturday’s bronze-medal match in Miami. 

The Pro Bowl’s television ratings have cratered, dropping from 10.1 million viewers in 2011 to a dismal 4.7 million for the most recent flag football edition. Roger Goodell and the NFL know they can fill that conference championship-to-Super Bowl gap with something better. The question is whether a third-place game between the two losing conference championship teams could be the answer.

The A to Z Sports staff put it to a vote, and the result landed at a dead split. Four yeses (including me) and four nos. Remove me as the organizer and the nos win, so all you purists shaking your fists can claim victory. A to Z Sports as a whole technically votes no.

But I’m not done making my case.

Why I say ‘Yes’ to an NFL Third Place Game

The obvious answer is money. Whatever streaming or broadcast network airs a third-place game will pay a premium for it, and they’ll sell more advertising than anything else occupying that late January or early February slot leading into Super Bowl week fills a gap networks would love to exploit.

In “Remember the Titans,” a character says somebody mentioned football, so he came running. That’s the point — we would all watch Rams versus Broncos instead of the Pro Bowl. I don’t care if a backup quarterback is starting. We’re turning that game on.

The player incentive problem (and how to solve it)

The biggest hurdle is getting players to suit up. In the World Cup, the third-place team received $29 million to distribute and the fourth-place team got $27 million. I don’t think a $2 million gap between third and fourth is enough to make the game competitive, but that pool at least gets players on the field.

The cash figure for participation has to be significant enough for fourth place that guys want to play even if they lose. Then the gap between third and fourth has to be wide enough to create real competitive incentive. And all of it has to scale logically beneath what the Super Bowl winner and loser receive.

Opt-outs should be totally fine. Think of it like a college football bowl game with no playoff implications. A pending free agent who doesn’t want to risk his health before hitting the market? Totally cool. Nursing an injury? Don’t play. But younger players looking for extra in-game reps could enter the offseason with momentum and experience they wouldn’t otherwise get.

The roster question is real, though. How many quarterbacks opt out? Do you have enough offensive linemen? NFL rosters are half the size of college rosters. You’d probably have to allow practice squad players to participate.

Draft capital as a carrot for teams

What if the winner of the third-place game received a compensatory draft pick? Something in the back end of the third round, roughly pick No. 100. In the last couple of drafts, the first pick of the fourth round has been 101. Would a top-100 selection be valuable enough to make franchises care about the outcome? Or does it need to be a fourth-round pick? Either way, the league isn’t taking away anyone’s existing selection or altering the draft order. It’s just throwing an extra comp pick into the mix for the winner.

You could even explore giving the loser a comp pick for participating. The details need work, but the structure is there.

The ultimate bargaining chip

Here’s the play that could make this real. The NFL’s players want grass fields. Every World Cup stadium, dome or not, installed real grass for the tournament. Many of those same venues are already switching back to turf for football. If Roger Goodell and the league see a third-place game as valuable enough, would the players sign off on it in exchange for a leaguewide return to grass? That trade-off is fascinating to me.

I tasked the A to Z Sports staff with weighing in on this concept, and I’ll have their full arguments both the yeses and the nos.

Rob Gregson: No

I don’t want to say that a third place game is beneath the NFL, because if you watched England against France in Miami on Saturday, it was one of the more entertaining games in the tournament. 

The players weren’t as uptight, they took more chances, and ultimately it led to the highest scoring match at the 2026 World Cup. Here’s why that wouldn’t work in the NFL. 

Beyond the logistical concerns of overlapping a third place game with the Pro Bowl, it’s not in the DNA of the NFL or any football player to put their body on the line for a shot at bronze. That’s a foreign risk assessment in a game that is one of the most challenging and demanding in all of professional sports. I don’t know how you could expect anything more than a glorified Pro Bowl between the two teams, and because of that, I believe it’s a bad idea.

Kyle Crabbs: Yes

I’m IN. 

We already have the perfect date for the NFL’s third-place game: a replacement for the farce that has become the NFL’s Pro Bowl weekend. 

The challenge with a third-place game, which the NFL used to have back in the 1960s, is finding the proper incentive to get the players to play. I think you’d need a big sponsor, you’d need a high-cash bonus for the players, and that’s the carrot you’d have to dangle. Exiting free agents would be well within their rights to sit out the game and prep for free agency — but I do think there’s merit to adding this game to the schedule. Especially if it comes at the expense of the league’s flag football experience. For some historical context, the NFL played the “Bert Bell Benefit Bowl” from 1961 through 1970. The game was hosted at the Orange Bowl every year and was, at the time, considered an officially scored game. It’s since been retrofitted to be an exhibition game in the historical record books. 

The AFL/NFL merger squashed the game — but it may be time to bring it back.

Mauricio Rodriguez: No

On paper, this is a great idea. And on the heels of a ten-goal game, the hype is more than understandable. 

But at the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at clouds, let me tell you how it would play out in reality—and why the NFL should never consider making a third-place game happen. 

Picture this: the date is set for the game. Only that both teams announce their starting quarterbacks, making over $30 million per year each aren’t playing (England sat multiple of its top players on Saturday, including forward Harry Kane). The same goes for everyone dealing with an injury, which in January implies multiple starters. One key player waiting to hit free agency is healthy, but he opts out to avoid injury before a massive payday. Meanwhile, at least one coordinator won’t be available because he took a new head coaching job and in the fast-moving NFL world, he’s obviously not waiting because of a consolation prize. 

By the time the second quarter starts, you’re asking yourself why they even put this together. I know, I know, you can blame me for not being fun at parties. But with the physical nature of football, this would never work. And frankly, I’m not sure it would be a fun product anyways.

Wendell Ferreira: Yes

Soccer brings a completely different reality because it’s a much safer game, and players won’t be at such a high risk of suffering injuries throughout a game. 

The underwhelming recent numbers from the Pro Bowl show how difficult it is to draw attention from a meaningless game in football. The question for the NFL would be how to drive interest from each party involved. For players, money has to be the answer. For teams and fans, it would probably have to be something more extreme, like some type of draft advantage. But it’s hard to pull that off and keep the parity the league wants. 

Because the NFL has been so willing to invest in flag football, especially ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a flag game between the conference championship losers with big bonuses and a cool trip to entice players would seem like the only viable avenue. And that option marries with the NFL’s desire to expand its brand around the world.

Ryan Roberts: No

As a football purist and fan, I would never vote against more football. I’m just not sure how the NFL would incentivize adding an additional game that doesn’t involve a championship. Football is an extremely violent and physical game, so there would be an inherent pushback against adding a game by some, and I’d be worried that there would be a lot of opt outs for the teams. 

Would the league offer a substantial payout for players participating in the game? Would it be enough to even incentivize them to play? It feels like it would be a low end incentive, at the most. 

Perhaps they would try to mimic the MLB and let the winner have home field advantage in the future (similar to All Star Game structure) but Super Bowls are already played in neutral sites. I’m not sure how a home field incentive would work out either. 

My last thought would be some sort of incentive for the NFL Draft but are players going to be willing to help their team potentially position themselves better to get their replacements? That feels like a bit of a pipe dream. Combine the lack of an easy push to make the players want to participate with the aforementioned physical toll of an additional game, I’m just not sure that structure would ever make sense for the people who matter most: the players.

Tyler Forness: Yes, it’ll happen

The NFL has played a third place game a total of 10 times, oddly enough all of them came during the existence of the AFT. Once they had merged, that game went away. 

There are many arguments against it, including player safety concerns. The NFLPA will continue raging against any notion of a third-place game, especially since it’s “meaningless.”

There is one reason why I think this will end up coming to fruition is simple: money. It doesn’t matter if the game would be meaningless, people will tune into an NFL game that isn’t preseason. If the NFL can sell the game to Netflix for a couple hundred million, they will do it, and you can find a way to make it worthwhile, maybe a better draft pick?

Easton Freeze: No

A third place game is antithetical to what the NFL is about. It works for Soccer and Olympic-style sports, where national pride and placement on the world stage is something to treasure. It would not work the same for football.

The only upside to this idea is giving fans another game of entertainment and the league another game of profits. The rest of the list is on the “cons” side of the ledger.

The NFL is a Ricky Bobby culture: if ya ain’t first, you’re last. Fans of Conference Championship loser won’t actually savor the opportunity to find out who was the better of the runner-ups. This is a gladiatorial sport with a singular goal: hoist the Lombardi.

That hyper-physical nature, of course, is where the greatest downside lies. This is an additional opportunity for extremely costly, meaningful injuries in a game with minimal meaning. There is nothing the league is more interested in than eliminating meaningless opportunities for injury.

Leave the third place games to other sports.