Life without sports continues to drag on, and we’re now at a point where we’re eagerly awaiting the announcement of a schedule of games to be played four months from that may or may not happen. We’re having a blast!
The NFL will announce its schedule Thursday night, the latest sign of hope that someday we’ll have live sporting events back in our lives. But deciding when or if those games return is easier said than done at this point, so we’re all kind of in a holding pattern.
If we were patient or had a lot to discuss in the sports world right now, we’d just wait until Thursday to get the NFL schedule and then dig in. But, honestly, we’re bored, and there’s not much going on, so why don’t we try to guess the NFL schedule a day before it’s released?
OK, so maybe not the entire NFL schedule, but this little thought exercise will focus solely on the New England Patriots’ 2020 schedule.
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Let it be known from this point forward: WE DON’T HAVE ANY INSIDE INFORMATION, and some of the information we’re using to make our predictions is very much uncorroborated.
That being said, we know the Patriots’ 2020 opponents, just not where the games will fall. Here are the teams they’ll play.
HOME: Arizona, Baltimore, Buffalo, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York Jets, San Francisco
AWAY: Buffalo, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, Miami, New York Jets, Seattle
All right. Now, a little wild speculation from a Twitter account with roughly 3,600 Twitter followers.
Expected format for 2020 schedule:
Week 1-4: Out-of-Conference games
Week 5-6: Equal-place Conference games
Week 7-10: Divisional games/Bye weeks
Week 11-14: Inter-conference games
Week 15-17: Divisional games— NFL Schedule Leaks (@nflschedule2020) May 5, 2020
Again, and we can’t stress this enough: We don’t know for sure whether that’s accurate, and we don’t even know who’s actually putting it out there. That being said, it makes a lot of sense to frontload those out-of-conference games, as they mean the least in the standings and wouldn’t affect as much if they were outright canceled and the league went to a 14- or even 12-game schedule for each team.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer heard something similar.
“Teams have their radar up, and No. 1 is the idea of a collapsable schedule — it can easily go to 12 or 14 games,” he said during an appearance on “Felger and Mazz” on Tuesday. “The thing you would look for there is interconference games being clustered together so they can just pull those out of the schedule.”
So, fine. We’re going to operate under the (very potentially incorrect) assumption @nflschedule2020 knows something about how the schedules will shake out.
With that in mind, here’s our best guess at the Patriots’ 2020 schedule.
Week 1 — at Los Angeles Rams
Week 2 — vs. San Francisco 49ers
Week 3 — at Seattle Seahawks
Week 4 — vs. Arizona Cardinals
Week 5 — at Houston Texans
Week 6 — vs. Baltimore Ravens
Week 7 — at Miami Dolphins
Week 8 — at Buffalo Bills
Week 9 — vs. New York Jets
Week 10 — BYE
Week 11 — at Kansas City Chiefs
Week 12 — at Los Angeles Chargers
Week 13 — vs. Denver Broncos
Week 14 — vs. Las Vegas Raiders
Week 15 — at New York Jets
Week 16 — vs. Buffalo Bills
Week 17 — vs. Miami Dolphins
NOTES
–The NFL schedule Twitter account says the Patriots will host the Niners in Week 2, so we rolled with that, and it also had Seattle playing Buffalo in Week 1, ruling out the Seahawks in that spot. So, we went with Bill Belichick and the new-look Patriots breaking in a brand-new SoFi Stadium against the Rams. It’s worth wondering how government mandates might affect the schedule. California is doing relatively well, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has been quick to shoot down the idea of sports returning soon to the Golden State.
–On that point, it’s worth noting Breer also mentioned in his interview teams in markets who have been affected most by the pandemic might have backloaded home dates. That’s kind of tricky when talking about the AFC East when you have two teams from New York/New Jersey and one from Massachusetts. But if the NFL feels comfortable playing the entire 16-game schedule, that means everyone is willing to play in their home markets. It also could mean the schedule is pushed back three or four weeks, which is also on the table, per Breer.
–What might really blow up our prediction is the bye week. We have the league throwing the Patriots a bone with the latest possible off-week. It also seems like a good time for rest after two early-season trips to the West Coast and right before back-to-back road games west of the Mississippi. Perhaps another week in Colorado is in store for New England in-between games?
–The Patriots have ended their last three seasons by hosting the Bills in Week 16, so we just went ahead and made it four. The Week 17 game in the last three seasons also has been at Gillette Stadium, and we’ll continue that trend, too, especially as it squares with the idea of backloading home dates.
