Tag: preseason

2020 Redskins schedule: Dates for Washington’s four preseason games released

Both the preseason and regular season schedules for the Washington Redskins were released to the public on Thursday night.

The Washington Redskins regular season schedule release got all of the buzz on Thursday night, but tentative dates for the preseason were released as well. As it stands now, the Redskins will kick off their preseason slate of games during the second weekend of August, should nothing change due to the coronavirus pandemic. Here is how the preseason schedule shakes out:

  • Preseason Week 1 — vs. Tennessee Titans (August 13-17)
  • Preseason Week 2 — at Indianapolis Colts (August 24) (ESPN)
  • Preseason Week 3 — at Jacksonville Jaguars (August 27-30)
  • Preseason Week 4 — vs. Baltimore Ravens (September 3)

A couple of interesting things to note come in Preseason Week 3 and 4, where Washington will start by traveling to Jacksonville where they will face former head coach Jay Gruden, who is now the offensive coordinator for the Jaguars. Then, in Preseason Week 4, the Redskins will host the Ravens, who also travel to Washington in Week 4 of the season as well.

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2020 Saints preseason schedule features familiar opponents

The New Orleans Saints will face familiar opponents like the Houston Texans and Miami Dolphins in their lineup of 2020 preseason games.

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The New Orleans Saints announced their schedule of 2020 preseason games in addition to their regular season lineup, and it includes a few teams fans have seen before. While just one of these matchups is slated for a national broadcast in primetime — Week 2 on the road, against the Pittsburgh Steelers on FOX — the Saints will get the opportunity to play a few exhibition games against teams they’ve worked with in the past.

Here’s the full four-game Saints preseason schedule:

  • Week 1, Aug. 13-17: Saints at Los Angeles Rams
  • Week 2, Aug. 23: Saints at Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Week 3, Aug. 27-30: Saints vs. Houston Texans
  • Week 4, Sept. 3-4: Saints vs. Miami Dolphins

While the Rams and Steelers are new preseason opponents for the Saints, they played the Dolphins last year and held a week of joint practices with the Texans before their 2018 exhibition game. It’s possible that the Saints will try arrange something similar with one or two of the teams on their dance card — The Athletic’s Jeff Duncan reported that New Orleans has already shown interest in exactly such a deal with Sean McVay’s Rams team.

Considering that players on both teams will have been beating each other up in practice for weeks beforehand, this might be seen as a great opportunity to try out against different skills sets and talents from around the league.

Keep an eye out for broadcast changes as we move deeper into the summer. The to-be-determined exact dates and times are no accident. In normal years, the NFL usually reserves the right to flex preseason games into more prominent time slots as it pleases. But the league must be even more flexible in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone if these preseason games are at least played without fans in attendance, moved, or outright canceled if the public health crisis is still ongoing by August or September. Hopefully the NFL will be able to work with local and federal governments to ensure a safe environment for teams and fans alike.

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Report: Saints, Steelers to play nationally-broadcast preseason game

The New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers will play a prime-time preseason game in Week 2 of the NFL preseason, reports The Athletic.

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While the NFL is planning to announce its 2020 schedule of games on Thursday evening, it is also finalizing its slate of preseason exhibition games. Per The Athletic’s Jeff Duncan, one of those kickoffs will be a prime-time matchup between the New Orleans Saints and the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 2, which will be broadcast nationally on FOX.

That’s a game the Saints will travel to Pittsburgh for, and it’s possible they will try to organize joint practices with the Steelers. It’s a favorite training camp tactic of Saints coach Sean Payton, who has worked to run joint practices with preseason opponents including the Los Angeles Chargers, New England Patriots, and Houston Texans in past years. Duncan also reported that the Saints requested just such an arrangement with the Los Angeles Rams, but it’s unclear yet whether the NFL approved that request.

In any case: these shared workouts give teams an opportunity to test and evaluate their players against uncommon opponents, following weeks of grueling training camp practices against their own teammates. Getting to compete against new faces and fresh skills sets is a great learning tool.

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Latest ESPN FPI has Longhorns in the top 12

ESPN has released their preseason FPI rankings for the upcoming 2020 season, the Texas Longhorns come in the top 12.

Recently ESPN released their recent FPI (Football Power Index). For those unfamiliar with the FPI, here is the explanation on ESPN’s model.

The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Projected results are based on 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule. Ratings and projections update daily.

Following the Longhorns victory over the Utah Utes in the Valero Alamo Bowl ESPN released their postseason FPI. They listed Texas inside the top 20. Their FPI at that time was 13, just a few months down the road and now the Longhorns find themselves ranked 11th with a FPI of 19.6. That number is just 0.5 behind their bitter rivals, Oklahoma.

  • Oklahoma (10th) FPI-20.1
  • Oklahoma State  (17th) 13.7
  • TCU  (20th) 12.0
  • Iowa State (27th) 9.9
  • Kansas State (32nd) 8.2
  • Baylor (34th) 7.8
  • Texas Tech (41st) 6.3
  • West Virginia (45th) 5.2
  • Kansas (98th) -6.7

The Longhorns will also play the LSU Tigers this upcoming season who ranked 6th in the FPI poll at 23.7.

Texas has a projected win total of 9.5 according to their simulations. There are a multitude of reasons that their FPI would increase over a four month span which could include a whole new staff essentially and the influx of another top ten recruiting class in 2020. This seems to fall right in line where most media outlets have Texas projected when it comes to their way too early top 25 rankings.

How summer cancellations will effect Big Ten football teams in 2020

As everybody knows today’s pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the sporting world. Whether the 2020 college football season will occur…

As everybody knows today’s pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the sporting world.

Whether the 2020 college football season will occur with fans in the stands, be able to start on time, or even be able to occur at all is yet to be seen. What we can project now, though, is how the almost-definite cancellations of summer practices and preseason camps will affect the Big Ten football teams if the season is indeed able to begin on schedule in early September. 

Preseason practices are a pivotal tool in order for college coaches to implement and practice new systems and prepare their teams for the upcoming season.

Probably the most important of these implementations is introducing a new quarterback to a team’s offensive scheme and, in some cases, to college football entirely.

Quarterbacks can study playbooks and watch film all they want, but nothing equates to on-field reps and practicing new plays with actual defenders in front of them.

This is where summer cancellations will have the biggest effect on the 2020 football season.

For top teams in the conference including Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Penn State who all return their starting quarterbacks from 2019, these cancellations will no doubt have an effect, but they will not have nearly as large of an effect as they will on the other teams in the conference who are facing turnover at the position.

The most notable of those teams are Iowa and Michigan State.

Were it a normal offseason and the two schools were able to have a full pre-season preparation period, there’s a chance that they wouldn’t miss much of a beat going into the season.

The talent difference between their departing quarterbacks and the incoming ones aside, summer practices and camps being cancelled will eliminate the chance for Iowa and Michigan State head coaches Kirk Ferentz and Mel Tucker respectively to groom their young quarterbacks and introduce them to college football–not to mention that Tucker is entering his own first year with the program.

Yes, a team like Wisconsin will lose out on valuable time to get redshirt freshman and former four-star recruit Graham Mertz ready for college-level play. But Ferentz and Tucker, as it seems at this point in time, may be forced to enter the season with players under center that aren’t adequately prepared to run their offense–again with Tucker being even more affected due to the fact that his entire team won’t have experience in his system. 

How this all plays out is yet to be seen, though if summer practices get cancelled and the season is able to start on time, expect Iowa and Michigan State to face an uphill battle in order for them to get their quarterbacks, and entire offenses, ready for football.

The Badgers are slated to face Iowa on November, 28 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa.

4 key takeaways to NFL’s new collective bargaining agreement

The NFL and Player’s Association ratified a new CBA, guaranteeing 10 years of labor peace. Here are four key takeaways from the new CBA.

A hotly contested collective bargaining agreement was ratified by the players on Sunday by a vote of 1,019 to 959, resulting in 10 years of labor peace between the NFL owners and the players association.

While many players were upset the vote passed, including many Seattle Seahawks, the new deal ultimately provides players with a slightly bigger piece of the overall revenue stream, while also relaxing the rules on drug testing.

Here are four key takeaways from the new collective bargaining agreement, and how it will impact the Seahawks and the NFL as a whole for the next decade.

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Broncos want to host Bears for joint practices in August

The Broncos hope to host the Bears for a preseason game and joint training camp practices in August.

The Denver Broncos and Chicago Bears would like to hold joint practices together this summer, according to a report from KUSA-TV’s Mike Klis. The two teams have made their request known to the league and details will wait to be sorted out until after the preseason schedule is confirmed.

As long as the NFL signs off (and there’s little reason to believe it wouldn’t), Denver will host Chicago for a preseason game in August and the two teams will hold joint practices together leading up to that game.

The Broncos also hosted the Bears for joint practices in 2018. Last summer, Denver hosted the San Francisco 49ers. The Broncos hosted San Francisco in four of the last five summers.

In addition to Chicago and the 49ers, Denver has also held joint practices with the Houston Texans (2003, 2005, 2014), Dallas Cowboys (2007, 2008) and Carolina Panthers (1996). The Broncos will likely announce their training camp schedule in mid-to-late June.

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Texas Longhorns Rank In Top 10 of ESPN’s Preseason FPI

ESPN has released their preseason FPI rankings for the upcoming 2020 season, the Texas Longhorns come in the top 10.

The preseason FPI rankings have been released for the 2020 college football season. The FPI (Football Power Index) is a way to measure the strength of a team with how they are projected to finish the season. The Longhorns come in ranked in the top 10.

The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Projected results are based on 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule. Ratings and projections update daily.

The Longhorns come in ahead of the defending National Champions, LSU Tigers. Texas has revamped their staff in hopes of making a run at the Big 12 Championship in 2020. The Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners are the only Big 12 teams in the top 10.

FPI Top 10 Conference Breakdown:

  • ACC (1)
  • Big Ten (3)
  • Big 12 (2)
  • Independent (1)
  • SEC (3)