Four Down Territory: Bearing Fruit
First Down
It wasn’t a matter of if but when.
The Titans are the first team to have multiple cases of COVID-19. Players and team personnel contracted the virus and it’s thrown a wrench in the NFL schedule.
So it works to move Steelers/Ravens to Week 8, Titans/Steelers to Week 7 in theory. And if the Vikings had to postpone their game in Houston? Check this out …
• Vikings' bye is Week 7.
• Texans' bye is Week 8.
• Texans play Packers Week 7.
• Vikings play Packers Week 8. https://t.co/FeAJEsZt6P— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) September 29, 2020
COVID has also struck in New England. Cam Newton and Stephon Gilmore also tested positive this week. The positive? It’s early in the season so it’s a little easier to reshuffle games but what’s the league going to do on the back nine of the year? What if an outbreak leads to a team having multiple bye weeks? Granted, teams would rather deal with playing multiple weeks than bye weeks due to COVID but it still may lead to a competitive advantage down the road.
What’s the solution?
Earlier this year we outlined that it would be almost impossible for the NFL to create a bubble because of the length of the season but since we’re knee deep in this thing a few better ideas have surfaced.
A 10 game schedule, with no bye week, followed by the playoffs starting in the divisonal round would mean that the Super Bowl champion would spend 13-14 weeks (3-3.5 months) in the bubble.
For reference that’s just about the same amount of time the Heat and Lakers have been in Orlando.
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To take this to a level that does not need to be reached let’s rank the most interesting hypothetical bubbles and who would win the Super Bowl if the NFL had went this route.
- AFC/NFC East: The MOST LEAST interesting bubble out of the four. These games would be the Thursday night special and most of the country would be fortunate if they were blacked out. What game is interesting? Patriots/Cowboys? Giants/Jets? Eagles/Dolphins? The only thing America would pay attention to is Cam’s meme count.
- AFC/NFC South: These divisons are mirrors of each other. Two teams that have the potential for deep playoff runs then two teams that will probably have a top-ten pick next year. Buc/Titans sounds like primetime TV but then we’d have to watch Falcons/Jaguars and it’s not woth the price.
- AFC/NFC North: This is great on paper. Green Bay/Baltimore, Vikings/Steelers, and you can even talk me into Lions/Browns. The Bears and Bengals aren’t that good but I’m not passing up the opporunity to see Maserti Mich go up against Joe Burrow.
- AFC/NFC West: Every single NFC West team taking a crack at Patrick Mahomes? What are we even talking about? Is this even a question?
The Chiefs would win it all regardless. Shocked?
Anyway.
Myron Rolle, former FSU star and Titans safety turned MD thinks the NFL has “fallen short” since the season started.
This will be a recurring issue as the season goes on, you can bank on that.
As of now the bubble doesn’t appear to be happening but the league will be coming down hard on teams that do not follow protocols.
The league better get ready to enforce these policies because teams haven’t been taking this as seriously as they should (looking at you, Raiders). The truth is they can only do so much. If the league wants complete control then a bubble is the only route.
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