NFL Exploring Saturday Games in 2020

Story Originally Published on CBSSports.com (5/1/20)

If the college football season gets postponed or canceled this year, there's a chance that could lead to more Saturday games in the NFL for the 2020 regular season. 

According to the New York Post, the league has had preliminary discussions about potentially playing Saturday games throughout the season. Basically, the 2020 NFL schedule would be created in such way that it would give the league the option to move a game (or games) to a Saturday if the NFL decides that would make more sense. The move would allow the NFL to take advantage of the open TV window that would be created on Saturdays if the college football season gets called off. 

The idea of flexing a game to a Saturday might sound kind of odd, but the NFL has actually done it in each of the past two seasons. When the 2018 schedule was released, the NFL announced that there would be multiple Saturday games on the schedule in December. However, the teams playing in those games weren't finalized until October. The NFL did the same thing in 2019 when it announced that there would be a Saturday triple-header on the schedule, although the teams playing in the triple-header weren't finalized until November. 

There's also always the chance that fans won't be allowed to attend games this year, which would make it easier for the NFL to flex games to a Saturday, since the league wouldn't have to worry about fans having to change their potential hotel, flight and other plans at the last minute. 

Although the Saturday option is being considered, the NFL's full season plan would stay mostly the same with the majority of games being played on Sundays, along with one being played on both Monday and Thursday, but the addition of a Saturday game throughout the season would give the league more flexibility. 

The key thing to remember here is that the Saturday plan would only potentially happen if the college football season gets postponed or canceled, and right now, that's something that's completely up in the air.

The 2020 NFL schedule is easily going to be one of the most complicated schedules that the league has ever had to put together. When the schedule is announced, it's going to have to come with multiple contingency plans so that the NFL can easily adjust if the coronavirus pandemic complicates things into the fall. Despite those potential complications, the NFL has insisted as recently as Wednesday that the 2020 schedule is still on track to be released by May 9.