NFL shortening its season because of the coronavirus would not benefit Seahawks
The NFL is taking steps to have a shortened season.
Just in case.
The league reportedly is structuring its 16-game schedule for 2020 so it can be easily shortened by multiple games if the coronavirus pandemic continues to keep American sports shut down into September.
Mark Maske of the Washington Post reported Thursday that when the NFL releases its schedule on May 8 or 9, it will be “structured in such a way it could be easily shortened if necessary.”
That likely indicates the league back-loading division games into the final month of the season, from November into December. It also signals front-loading each team’s out-of-conference games to September and October. Those four interconference games per team likely would be the ones cut to create a revised 12-game schedule.
Cutting two of those four games could create a 14-game schedule if need be. But just cutting all four interconference games would eliminate the competitive-balance issues of some teams inevitably claiming their rivals got more games cut against lesser opponents.
This arrangement would intend to retain the importance of division games in determining regular-season champions. Division winners get home playoff games in the first round of the new playoff format expanded by two teams this coming year.
Cutting games against the AFC and keeping all six games against their NFC West rivals would be less than ideal for the Seahawks in 2020.
As part of the league’s annual rotation of interconference games, Seattle is scheduled to play the AFC East. That’s been one of the league’s weaker divisions in recent seasons. The futures oddsmaker BetOnLine said this week the Seahawks will be favored to win in three of their four AFC games: at home against the New York Jets (-8 1/2 points) and Tom Brady-less New England Patriots (-4), plus at the Miami Dolphins (-4). BetOnLine says Seattle is a two-point underdog at Buffalo, a playoff team last season.
A shortened NFL schedule would make six of Seattle’s potentially 12 games in 2020 against what lately has been the league’s toughest division. The Seahawks’ NFC West games are again home and away against the defending conference-champion San Francisco 49ers, the 2018 NFC-champion Los Angeles Rams and the Arizona Cardinals. This year All-Pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins joining 2019 first-overall pick Kyler Murray in the desert.
Of course, all of Seattle’s division rivals would be in the same situation.
Cutting AFC games would leave the rest of Seattle’s schedule beyond its division games as is: home against Dallas, Minnesota and the New York Giants; plus at Washington, at Atlanta and at Philadelphia.
The consideration of alternative schedules and weighing the possibility of COVID-19 canceling games is the reason the league has yet to announce its schedule for 2020. The NFL usually makes its schedule announcements by mid-April.
It’s apparent the league—which is holding its draft entirely remotely with team coaches, general managers and scouts separated in their homes—is preparing multiple contingencies in the increasingly likely event the pandemic continues to affect the nation’s normal business into August. NFL contingencies include the possibility of playing games in empty stadiums without fans until a vaccine and herd immunity exist.
And scientists say those conditions might not exist for another year.
The Los Angeles Times reported the mayor of Los Angeles told top city officials this week the coronavirus may cause L.A. to prohibit concerts, sporting events or any mass public gatherings until 2021.
Los Angeles has a palatial new stadium, the indoor-outdoor SoFi Stadium, waiting to open for the Rams and Chargers in suburban Inglewood this fall. Construction on it has continued during the pandemic, but two workers there reportedly tested positive for COVID-19. Workers finishing the new stadium are getting thermometer scans and other health checks at the start of each workday at the site.
There has been talk of the NFL possibly playing games in empty stadiums on Saturdays, too, if college football does not have a season this fall. College conference and league officials are coming out against any idea of playing football or any other sport if students are not back on campuses by the start of the 2020-21 academic year in August and September.
The bottom line: there are still too many unknowns in mid-April for anyone to have an accurate read on what will happen with the 2020 NFL season from September into January.
But the league is preparing for the multiple possibilities of not having a 16-game season.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 1:24 PM with the headline "NFL shortening its season because of the coronavirus would not benefit Seahawks."
