NFL 2020 Offseason Thoughts

Hello readers! It has been a fair while since I had last wrote on this blog. Days and months have passed since I wrote back in February on the Kansas City Chiefs victory in Super Bowl LIV over the San Francisco 49ers. In this post I'll talk about: Tom Brady, my take on the coronavirus pandemic and how it could affect the 2020 season, and my thoughts on making the season more fan friendly.

Brady taking his talents to Tampa

Tom Brady has been in the NFL for 20 seasons. For the 100+ years that the National Football League has existed, Tom Brady has been in it for 1/5th of its history. How about that for crazy stats. For 20 seasons he played for the New England Patriots, a franchise who's best known player was offensive guard John Hannah (if you've never heard of him, check him out). Brady helped put the Patriots on the map and gave Boston area fans a reason to watch football on Sundays.

In March, Tom Brady bid farewell to the team that he helped lead to countless victories, including six Super Bowl wins, including nine Super Bowl appearances. The rumors of his departure were ever growing when last fall he put his house up for sale. Once the news broke, the media went into a frenzy. Once the hardy veteran's contract with the Patriots was up, he became for the first time in his career, a free agent.

I could imagine there were a few teams that wanted him, but I felt that he knew all along that he wanted to be a Buccaneer. Who could blame him for wanting to go there? He has one of the best wide receivers in the game in Mike Evans along with former Patriot teammate Rob Gronkowski. Tampa Bay has an underrated defense as well, finishing the 2019 season as the best rush defense in the league, only allowing 73.8 yards/game. Along with head coach Bruce Arians, the Bucs look to make some noise in the NFC South.

The After-Brady Era 

The loss of Brady will hurt but it was to be expected. There was no "Brady riding off into the sunset" victory last season. If Brady truly wanted to retire, he would've after Super Bowl LIII. Patriots head coach Bill Belichek has won games before Brady, and it would to be expected that he will win games after Brady.

The team that Belichek has is still relatively good. They still have the hallmark Belichek defense that from top to bottom has great depth and uses many packages to confuse offenses. It is more of how well the offense can do.

Before July, it had been assumed that Jarrett Stidham would be Tom Brady's successor in New England. All that changed on July 2nd when former Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton signed a 1-year deal with the Patriots. The 10th year passer out of Auburn will compete against Stidham along with Brian Hoyer for the starting quarterback role in New England.

I feel there's a few reasons why Cam Newton came to New England. First was the fact that the Patriots, in my opinion, was like an island of misfit toys of sorts, when other teams discarded their players, they found success in New England. All you have to look is Rodney Harrison who was discarded by the Chargers in March 2003, eleven months later he would end up helping the Patriots win their 2nd championship. Bill Belichek always gave you a 2nd chance if he felt that you still had something left in the tank. A sort of 21st century version of the Oakland Raiders in the 1970's.

2nd reason was that the Patriots are a stable franchise that can help him with his mechanics, help him be a better player for them. It should be a fact that the most successful teams in any sense of the word, starts from the top and works their way to the bottom. If you have a stable front office/leadership then people will gravitate towards that. People tend to like places where there isn't a lot of drama or weak leadership.

Coronavirus and the NFL

If you've been living in a cave or under a bridge for the past several months, you've more than likely noticed that there's a pandemic going on. It has certainly affected local, state, national and international governments. The way that the pandemic has been going on in the US has been less than satisfactory. While I won't go into the political side of the issue, I do believe that things haven't gotten better in the United States, compared to other countries. Be smart, where a mask if you have to go out in public.

I think the NFL will be watching how well the other three major sports leagues will handle their situations. The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League will have restarts to their seasons later this month and Major League Baseball will start its season on Thursday the 23rd (I'm writing this as of the 18th). If it proves to be successful, then there should a good chance that the football season will start as scheduled come September. If it doesn't, then there could be problems.

There could be a possible reduction to the season where perhaps the only games will be divisional games or rather teams will play teams in close proximity to each other, to lessen the spread. The ultimate worst case scenario is that won't be no football this season. It is rather difficult to see how well things will go come September. American football is not exactly a sport where "social distancing" is a thing that is practiced all that often. Just imagine Aaron Rodgers telling Anthony Barr to practice social distancing while Rodgers hits Devantae Adams for a touchdown. In other words, it ain't gonna happen.

The Fan Experience

The major sports leagues in the US will more than likely have to have no fans in the stands for games. This will likely be none the truer than in the NFL. Since the possibility of no fans in the stands is in all likelihood, I've come up with a few ways to possibly make the fan experience better and help take our minds off of the problems of the outside world.

Cheaper price for NFL Sunday Ticket: The fact that you have to pay so much money for a TV package like Sunday Ticket is outrageous, let alone during a pandemic. It sucks that you have to be a Jets fan in Colorado or a Bears fan in Texas. It sucks that you have to pay close to 400 bucks for a whole season, hell it even sucks for those fans that can't even go to the games this season. You want to get fans interested in your league, make it cheaper, especially since many people right now are out of work.

Lessen the crowd noise: I don't really like artificial crowd noise. Hell, I hate it when teams put in crowd noise to drown out the fans in the stadium. I want to hear the players mic'd up. I want to hear them say words that you wouldn't say to your own grandmother. I want to hear them make adjustments as the game goes on.

Bring back vintage uniforms: I like history. I enjoy watching old NFL films productions. Bring back old school uniforms. I want to see uniforms that teams wore in their early years.

Bring back Monday Night Football on ABC: There's a reason why ESPN shows their Wild Card game on their network and ABC, TO INCREASE VIEWERSHIP. It sucks that its on cable and not on an ABC affiliate. Monday is usually the last time you get to watch football until Thursday. Just for this season have it be on ABC/ESPN simulcast.

Let fans make the call: This one perhaps could be a iffy. There's no question that NFL officiating has been questionable over the last few years, let alone decades. You want to gauge fan interest, let them vote on the call on whether or not a player caught the ball or not. Let them decide on a fumble.

The next post that will happen will more than likely happen later this month. Once training camps start happening I'll talk more. Eventually, I'll get into my preseason picks and my picks for the weekly games. Until then, thank you for reading and I'll see you all on the next post.

-Tom