The NFL will release its 2020 regular season schedule on Thursday night, but the first reports and rumors are already making the rounds. One of them, courtesy of ESPN’s John Clayton, looks as follows and obviously takes the Coronavirus factor into consideration: the first four weeks of the regular season are expected to exclusively feature games between AFC and NFC teams — an approach that would make sense from the league’s perspective.
How come? Out-of-conference matchups are the least consequential on the schedule in terms of potential impact on postseason seeding (divisional and conference tiebreakers are most important). If push came to shove and the NFL would indeed be forced to postpone or cancel games because of the national health crisis, those contests would be the easiest to eliminate without a major impact on the overall structure of the season.
From the New England Patriots’ perspective, such an approach to scheduling would mean that the team would start its regular season against the four NFC West teams — with two games at home and two coming on the road.
The two road games at Seattle and L.A. would likely be scheduled in back-to-back weeks to limit the number of cross-country trips for the Patriots.
It obviously remains to be seen whether or not Clayton’s report turns out to be accurate, but the logic behind the NFL scheduling out-of-conference games early would certainly make sense. Either way, we will know more tomorrow: the league will officially release its schedule at 8:00 p.m. ET. on Thursday.
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May 07, 2020 at 05:00AM
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NFL 2020 schedule release: Patriots rumored to play NFC West in Weeks 1-4 - Pats Pulpit
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