As the longest sports drought of any of our lifetimes stretches on, we’re all desperate for some kind of content. The modern NFL is a 12-month a year league now, but even so, we’re stuck in the slow part of the season. The draft is complete, and now it’s a long (possibly very long) wait until the season starts. Let’s try to quench our thirst and have a look at what changes the 2020 NFL season will be bringing us.
The Raiders are now the Las Vegas Raiders. This is probably a move that we will get used to quicker than Chargers moving to Los Angeles. I’d put money on hearing “San Diego” more than “Oakland” on podcasts this season.
Fantasy Impact: Probably not much, however I do wonder if players will be a bit more hungover than usual when playing a road game in Vegas. Players could run into some heat issues with early season day games, but we’ll have to check out the schedule when it’s released tomorrow.
The Rams and Chargers are expected to begin the season in their new stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. Finally, both teams will have a permanent home after years of squatting when they moved to Los Angeles.
Fantasy Impact: Again, not much at all, although the Chargers will probably go from the crowd being 50% away fans to being about 80%. Once fans are allowed to attend games again, that is. Until then, maybe the Chargers have a slight advantage over the league for the same reason – they’re used to not having any fans.
One more team from each conference will make the playoffs. With the new system, only the top seed will have a bye week. This will likely result in more teams having something to play for, whether it’s seeding or a playoff berth, through weeks 16 and 17.
Fantasy Impact: Short term, I don’t see much change. Hopefully, this gets rid of any questions of players resting during week 16 (which always makes for a difficult sit/start decision). Long term I could see some leagues extending right to the end of the regular season, if the final week of the season winds up being more reliably competitive. Of course, this will all get rebalanced again next year when they introduce the 17 game schedule, which will definitely change the fantasy football season length.
There’s a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the NFLPA. There is no threat of a lockout or strike for another 10 years, so, there will be no repeat of the 2011 offseason.
Fantasy Impact: Aside from the additional playoff teams and 17 game schedule, there will be 2 more active players on each team each game day. These players are at the end of the roster and will generally provide depth and not be impact players, but this could affect the bottom end of deeper leagues, spreading out the work that a 4th receiver or a 3rd running back might see. On the flipside, you might end up seeing more specialists making the active roster, specifically guys who do not contribute on special teams, but now may find a small role on game day.
Rule change proposals are set to be voted on at the spring meetings, currently scheduled for May 19-20. There are not any major changes, but some noticeable ones include not recommending renewing the pass interference replay review (no vote needed), adding a “sky judge” style official, and eliminating Bill Belichick’s dead ball foul trick to burn time off the clock.
Fantasy Impact: The only rule changes that could impact fantasy football are the return of the OT period to 15 minutes and the option of a 4th & 15 play from a team’s own 25-yard line in lieu of an onside kick attempt. Again, none of these changes are official yet, they are just the ones that have been recommended by the Competition Committee.
The international games for 2020 have been cancelled. The Jaguars were scheduled to host two home games in London, as well as one for Miami and one for the Falcons. The Cardinals were also scheduled to host a game in Mexico City later in the season. Understandably, international travel has been cancelled for the NFL this year due to Covid-19.
Fantasy Impact: No more worrying about 8:30am (Central Time) starts! No more missing setting your lineup because you went out on Saturday night. Everyone has an equal home game schedule this year, so no wondering what it’s like for players having to travel all the way to London and how they deal with the jet lag.
