The National Football League is still planning to play a full 16-game season, but the exact manner of which that will happen has yet to be determined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the league prepares to release it’s 2020 season schedule by the end of next week, they have confirmed that several contingency plans are being built into the schedule including the potential removal of bye weeks and games in empty stadiums and/or neutral sites.
“The schedule will come out as normal, but we’re doing reasonable and responsible planning as we always do, inside of game operations,” league executive Troy Vincent told The Associated Press. “We have to look at it in the current environment based off what we’re learning through the science and through the medical community.”
Earlier this week a report from the Sports Business Journal suggested that the start of the 2020 season could be pushed back as far as late October and that Super Bowl LV could be played in Tampa, Florida could be played as late as Feb. 28.
The league currently expects the season to start with a kickoff game on Sept. 10 and conclude with the Super Bowl on Feb. 7.
