The Jaguars should be rooting for one thing above all else Thursday night with regard to the NFL releasing its 2020 schedule: all 16 games actually being played.
Whether the season is delayed due to COVID-19 precautions or not, the Jaguars — maybe more than any other franchise — need every playing opportunity possible to accelerate the development of the league’s youngest team.
Let’s be honest: Doug Marrone is coaching a squad that will have a steep learning curve, so a shortened season isn’t in the Jaguars’ best interest. In fact, this is one year where every preseason game is meaningful because 39 new players on the 90-man roster, which doesn’t include second-year players who got minimal playing time as rookies last season, need reps to get better and build chemistry.
The NFL understands whatever it says about planning for a 16-game schedule at this point is meaningless. Nobody knows with any guarantee how the coronavirus is going to impact 32 teams in 24 different state venues, especially with California, Louisiana and New York/New Jersey being so tenuous in terms of when they can be cleared to resume normal activities, never mind playing football.
It’s not inconceivable the NFL might have to settle for a season reduced by two, four or even six games. That’s why the league should begin every team’s schedule with all the AFC-NFC matchups in the first four weeks. Those are the least impactful games on deciding the champions of the eight divisions, so front-load the schedule with games the league can most afford to cancel.
Yes, losing the first quarter of the season in that scenario would mean shelving the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs’ high-profile matchups with Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Drew Brees’ New Orleans Saints, but those games are more expendable.
The NFL has to allow for schedule adjustments, which could mean rearranging the slate once or twice in the coming months. The top three schedule priorities of what to preserve should be clear: six division games, four games against another division (AFC North for Jaguars) within each conference, then two games versus other conference opponents that finished last season in corresponding place (Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Chargers for Jaguars) of the other conference divisions.
The NFL scrapping all international games due to COVID-19 — which means the Jaguars not having to spend 11 days in London or on long plane flights to accommodate back-to-back games at Wembley Stadium — is probably a good thing. It saves on a lot of body-clock adjusting that no other team has to endure.
Nothing else about how the schedule shakes out really matters all that much. The unavoidable worst part is the Jaguars will have five road games against teams that were in the 2019 playoffs. It’d be nice not to have any of those games in back-to-back weeks, but the NFL schedule-makers aren’t exactly known for accommodating the Jaguars.
With general manager Dave Caldwell overhauling a good portion of this roster — my projection of the current two-deep chart features 14 new players — this season is the closest thing to a rebuild since the early Gus Bradley years when the talent was far inferior.
Unless second-year quarterback Gardner Minshew takes a dramatic jump, it figures to be a 2020 season of more downs than ups. Expectations are modest, but that doesn’t mean this can’t be the start of a legitimate rebirth.
For now, the best thing for the Jaguars is to at least get in a full 16-game slate. A shortened season only stunts the development of a team has a lot of growing up to do.
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