The Arena Football League will play an 18-game regular-season schedule in 2011.

The move likely means some changes in the number of players on each teams' rosters. The AFL season will get underway earlier and teams will have two bye weeks during the season.

We'll touch on the schedule change as update Raul Vijil's knee injury -- he has a torn ACL and will have surgery on Wednesday -- with a later post.

Meanwhile, here's more on the 18-game schedule.