A lot of changes were made to the 2020 NFL season whenever the CBA was agreed on by the players, including an extra regular season game. The changes don’t automatically kick in, though.
With the annual league meetings cancelled by the ongoing pandemic, the NFL owners met on a conference call Tuesday, and approved a playoff expansion plan that will come into effect this upcoming season.
2020 NFL Playoff updates:
* 14 teams, 7 per conference
* One bye per conference
* Wild Card weekend schedule: three games on January 9, 2021, three games on January 10, 2021
* This marks the first NFL Playoff expansion since 1990— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 31, 2020
The expanded format was proposed to the players in the new CBA, and therefore agreed upon whenever the players voted in the agreement by a slim margin.
More teams will make the NFL playoffs than ever before. Each conference will now have seven teams make the postseason, one more than previous seasons since the 2002 realignment. The extra playoff spot is counted as the third wild-card spot, meaning the team can come from any division within the conference.
Up until 1978, NFL had 3 division winners & 1 wild-card team. Added 2nd WC that season, 3 teams had byes.
1990 season, added 3rd WC team, top 2 seeds had byes.
Realignment in 2002 to 4 divisions, 2 WC teams, 2 byes.
2020, 4 divisions, 3 WC teams, 1 bye.
It'll be fine, folks.
— KD Drummond (@KDDrummondNFL) February 20, 2020
Only the No. 1 seed in each conference will receive a bye week during the first week of the playoffs now, while the format previously awarded a bye week to the top two teams per conference. This should make success in the regular season that much more important, as being the top seed in your conference now grants a unique advantage.
The added team creates one extra game on both sides of the bracket, and these games will be played as part two triple-headers in January of 2021.
For a league that has had the same playoff format for 30 years now, these changes feel substantial. If nothing else, this means two more games a season and a glimmer of championship hope for two extra franchises a year.
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