NFL owners are expected to ratify a proposal today in order to expand the regular-season to 17 games for 2021 and beyond. With it will come some other changes to the NFL’s schedule, including changes to the preseason.
Per numerous reports, the NFL plans to reduce the preseason to three games in order to compensate for the newly-added 17th regular-season game. This is because the new CBA dictates that NFL players cannot be asked to play more than 20 combined regular season and preseason games per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
In order to add in a meaningful regular-season game, they had to take away a preseason game. An interesting detail to follow is that the NFL won’t be moving up their start date because of this change. Instead, they’ll give teams an additional bye week after the preseason, just before the regular season begins according to Washington Post reporter Mark Maske.
It's expected that in a 17-game season with a three-game preseason, Week 4 of the preseason becomes a bye. The start of regular season would be unchanged. Still one regular season bye week per team. Postseason gets pushed back one week. Next year's Super Bowl would be on Feb. 13.
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske) March 30, 2021
Now, the addition of a bye week and the elimination of a preseason game are both potentially big news for the Kansas City Chiefs. Andy Reid is a creature of habit and has always gone about the preseason in a very specific way. In each of the four games, he would ramp up his starters. He’d give them more snaps in each consecutive week leading up to the final game, where they’d sit. In the final preseason game, he’d always give his second and third-string players opportunities to impress, not just the coaching staff in Kansas City, but potentially it’d serve as an audition for jobs elsewhere. Obviously, he’ll have to adapt that strategy given one less game.
The bye week addition is also an interesting one. It gives players some time to rest and get healthy after an entire offseason of work. We all know head coach Andy Reid’s incredible record of success when coming off a bye week. That extra time to gameplan and get his guys prepared should pay dividends for this team in Week 1.
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