NFL Owners Vote 'Yes' on New 14-Team 2020 Playoffs
FRISCO - We must admit: Our usual concerns about NFL "over-saturation'' - which we've essentially been proven wrong about over the last 35 years at every turn - are dead now.
Why? A new playoff structure was approved by NFL players earlier this month in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, and on Tuesday the NFL owners approved the move as well ... and so we're going to have a 14-team playoff format for the 2020 season as as starved as we all are for sports?
We're ready to gobble it all up. final approval.
The NFL's traditional Annual League Meeting was to take place earlier this month but of course was shut down as part of the league's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. So on Tuesday came a conference call that took place involving league owners.
There were other issues on the table, including approval of which of the broadcast networks who will air the new playoff games, a vote on Amazon continuing as a distributor of Thursday Night Football, a vote on health and safety issues and a discussion of how the league will respond to COVID-19 in terms of issues like the 2020 NFL schedule release.
But most important to most fans: The new structure in the CBA that adds one playoff team per conference, creating six total wild-card games (three on Jan. 9 and three on Jan. 10) and just one first-round bye for each conference - all of which adds up to two additional wild-card games being broadcast. ... all of which means "more football'' - whenever it is we get football at all.
