Tag: 17-game schedule

Cowboys News: Dak Prescott vs Matt Stafford debate, playing a 17-game slate

Ranking Dak Prescott and the NFC East QBs, re-tallying sack totals to 1960, bold predictions for the Cowboys, and what 17 games feels like. The latest Cowboys News and Notes.

So much brouhaha over one spot in a countdown. ESPN touched off a firestorm when it slotted Matthew Stafford over Dak Prescott in a recent ranking of NFL quarterbacks, and Cowboys Nation has thoughts. Meanwhile, NFL.com pays a backhanded compliment by calling Prescott the best passer… in the worst division for the position. Fans are wondering if a new Prescott backup is coming before training camp, and Prescott himself is showing off the new Nike cleats he’ll be endorsing. (Elsewhere, Dez Bryant showcases a pretty famous pair of cleats of his own.)

In other news, what would happen to the list of all-time sack leaders if they were an official stat prior to 1982? One outlet runs the numbers to find out. Also, dig in to what players can expect this 17-game season by looking to the eight men who have already done it. We’ve got player profiles of defenders Randy Gregory and Brent Urban, rookie Chauncey Golston could be a big-time sleeper, and there’s a bold prediction regarding rookie Osa Odighizuwa. Finally, a look at the remarkable career of tight end Mike Ditka and the integral role Tom Landry played in reinvigorating his Hall of Fame career.

NFL owners approve 17-game regular-season schedule

The NFL has approved its 17-game schedule for the upcoming regular season.

NFL owners have approved a 17-game schedule for the regular season at their virtual meeting on Tuesday.

The schedule will go into effect this season. Preseason games will drop to three from the current four.

There will continue to be one bye week for each team.

Some players such as Alvin Kamara already have been unhappy about the extra game.

So, the NFL has gone from 12 to 14 to 16 and now to 17 as the sport gets bigger and stronger over time.

King: 2021 schedule would have Cowboys traveling to New England for 17th game

If you had gotten a dollar for every time the NFL’s 2020 campaign was referred to as “a season unlike any other,” well, you’d be sitting on Dak Prescott-level money right now. But the fact is, 2021 is shaping up to be pretty unprecedented, too. …

If you had gotten a dollar for every time the NFL’s 2020 campaign was referred to as “a season unlike any other,” well, you’d be sitting on Dak Prescott-level money right now. But the fact is, 2021 is shaping up to be pretty unprecedented, too.

Noted insider Peter King of NBC Sports offers a preview of some of the new scheduling wrinkles that will affect the Cowboys – plus every other team in the league- next season in the latest edition of his Football Morning in America column.

While a 17th regular season game on each team’s slate was approved in theory last March, it hasn’t been been officially given the greenlight for the upcoming season. King expects that to happen, though, and says “TV partners and NFL schedulers are working under the assumption” that each team will play one extra game starting in 2021.

By virtue of the agreed-upon divisional rotation and final standings, the Cowboys have known that should a 17th regular season game be added in 2021, they would be paired with the New England Patriots. What hasn’t been announced is which team would host that still-hypothetical game.

King reports that he’s “hearing it’s likely” that since the extra games are all AFC-versus-NFC matchups, one conference would play host this year, and then the other conference would be the home team next year. This keeps things fair within each conference, King points out, with no chance of “three NFC East teams playing eight at home and the fourth playing nine at home.”

It’s speculated that the AFC would be granted hosting duties in 2021, meaning the Cowboys would travel to Foxborough this season, in a game that King ranks in his top five for the season. “If it’s not a good game,” he predicts, “at least it’ll get ratings out the wazoo.”

As noted by CBS Boston, “the Patriots hosted the Cowboys in 2019, a game which the Patriots won 13-9. The Patriots have won six straight games against the Cowboys, dating back to 1999. Prior to that, the Patriots went 0-7 vs. Dallas from 1971-96.”

The scheduling plan King predicts would leave the Cowboys with their normal eight home games in 2021, but nine in 2022.

So what does that extra game in the regular season do to the overall calendar? There’s almost no chance the season would start any earlier; the post-Labor Day kickoff seems set in stone. And the league appears unlikely to add a second bye week for teams, King writes, meaning “17 games in 18 weekends.”

The push, then, will come in the postseason. Super Bowl LVI is currently supposed to be played on February 6, 2022 at SoFi Stadium; while game officials in Los Angeles have not yet been contacted about moving that date, King believes the move will be made to leave the all-important week in between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. “So that adds up to Feb. 13,” King says, “which would be the latest Super Bowl in history.”

Also regarding the playoffs, King thinks “it’s somewhere between 50-50 and very likely” that fans will get a wild-card game on Monday night following the 2021 season. Last year’s college football title game being played on the Monday of wild card weekend forced the NFL to stage tripleheaders on both Saturday and Sunday, which proved to be overload for even the most rabid fans. Next year’s schedule crowns a collegiate champion before the NFL’s postseason begins, so it’s thought we could see “two [wild card] games on Saturday, three on Sunday, and one on Monday.”

Finally, with December 25, 2021 falling on a Saturday, King feels there’s a strong possibility that fans will be presented with two games that day. “The league was encouraged by the big rating for last season’s Saints-Vikings game (20.1 million viewers on FOX, the highest non-Sunday rating for the network in more than two years),” he points out. The NFL looking to nibble away at even more of the NBA’s traditionally huge chunk of the holiday’s sports-watching pie seems entirely plausible.

Who knows? It could even be a very Cowboys Christmas in 2021.

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Cowboys News: Free agent, coordinator and draft targets for 2021

Dallas has a lot to fix this offseason.

Defense dominates the headlines in Dallas, even after its best performance of the season. Holding Cincinnati to a lone touchdown wasn’t enough to quash persistent speculation that coordinator Mike Nolan will be shown the door; many are already thinking about who should fill his role in 2021. But there will be turnover on the field, too, and there are plenty of veteran free agents and collegiate draft prospects to consider for the coming defensive rebuild. All that comes even as the Cowboys see several defensive backs make their return to the practice field on Wednesday.

Looking for silver linings on defense? Check out the profile on Randy Gregory and read up on why DeMarcus Lawrence is deserving of far more praise than he’s getting this year. Elsewhere on the roster, Ezekiel Elliott isn’t shutting it down anytime soon, Dalton Schultz has overachieved in a big way, and long snapper L.P. Ladouceur is about to break a unique record. We’re looking at what CeeDee Lamb’s done without Dak, and why Mike McCarthy’s staff may not actually want that postseason “honor” they could be in line for. There’s talk of how a 17-game season will work, and Jerry Jones stops short of trimming the preseason schedule. All that, plus a look at the Cowboys’ current playoff chances, a look ahead at their projected draft slot, and a look way, way, way back at their very first postseason win. Here’s the News and Notes.

NFLPA head seeks unity as expanded schedule, playoffs reach forefront of CBA talks

The head of the players’ union warns that “a two-year strike” may be required for NFL players to get what they want from owners.

The enormity of the NFL empire is never more obvious than Super Bowl Week. But buried within the star-studded parties and celebratory events hyping Sunday’s big game in Miami, there is a meeting scheduled that could have serious repercussions on the future of the sport, possibly bringing it all to an abrupt halt with a total shutdown of the league.

Player representatives are set to meet with NFL Players Association leaders on Thursday for an update on the union’s efforts to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with league owners. According to an ESPN report from Dan Graziano, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith says he is planning to tell players that “if they want to dig in their heels on any one issue — including the owners’ push for an expanded, 17-game regular season — they have to be willing to take it all the way.”

That could very well mean an NFL strike before the 2021 season.

“People need to understand that it’s really easy to call for a work stoppage; it’s really hard to win one,” Smith told reporters in Miami. “So that’s why I started notifying players four years ago about saving their checks, making changes to their debt structure, and the reality is that if we want to hold out and get everything we want, that’s probably going to mean a two-year strike.”

While the owners’ desire for a 17-game regular season will be a significant item on the docket in a new CBA, expanded playoffs and a shortened preseason are also up for debate. Further topics to be hashed out likely include changes to the league’s drug and discipline policies, improved benefits for current and retired players, changes to training camp rules, and ultimately, the percentage of revenue players would agree to receive.

Smith will meet this week with player reps from the 30 teams not playing in Super Bowl LIV. The meeting is not expected to feature a vote on any issues, but as Graziano points out, “the union hopes that everyone comes out of it with some idea of where things stand and what kind of action the players want to take going forward.”

Both sides know that “a two-year strike,” as referenced by Smith, would be catastrophic to the league and permanently alienate scores of advertisers, broadcasters, and fans worldwide.

The next key moment for movement will be the NFLPA’s anual meeting, held in Florida in March. Cornerback Byron Jones is the Cowboys’ current representative; offensive lineman Joe Looney is the alternate. Both are free agents this offseason.

The current CBA expires in March 2021; ongoing negotiations would not affect the next NFL season or postseason. But, Graziano says, “there are portions of the new deal that would benefit the players if they were in place in time for the 2020 season.”

There is still plenty of time for the two sides to come to an agreement that benefits everyone, and the pomp and circumstance surrounding Sunday’s Super Bowl- the culmination of the league’s centennial anniversary- should serve as good reminders to both players and owners that the NFL pie is plenty big enough for everyone to get a fair slice.

But it’s Smith’s job to remind players that they also need to be prepared to get up and leave the table- for the first time since 1987- if it comes to that.

“The job of the union is to engage in good-faith negotiations, make sure that our players are informed, but at no time take it for granted that what is really needed is the ability of players to withstand a work stoppage and win it so that they come out of it better than before they went into it,” Smith said. “And if we are prepared to do that, and the players vote to take that action, we’ll be fine. But anything less than being fully prepared is wishful thinking, and perhaps cheap and dangerous talk.”

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