Earlier this week, the NFL announced a plan to cut down the 2020 preseason from four games to two. On Thursday night’s NFLPA call, the union’s board of reps voted unanimously to recommend that the league doesn’t play any preseason games. The players want to focus on the regular season.
While the preseason is significantly more important for the players on the bottom of the roster so they can earn a spot on the regular-season roster, 2020 could be a year that makes it quite difficult for UDFA’s to break into the league. Those players were already facing an uphill battle, to begin with. When you add in that teams may only bring 75-80 players to training camp, and all of their work has to come in practice—where you rarely take players to the ground—we could see the lowest number of UDFA’s to make final rosters in some time.
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero said the NFLPA made the following proposals:
- 3 days: medical/equipment
- 21 days: strength & conditioning
- 10 days: unpadded practice
- 14 days: practice (10 max/8 padded)
After that, teams would go right into Week 1. No matter what the NFL and NFLPA decide, every team will have a level playing field. The focus should be on preventing the spreading of COVID-19 while players aren’t exposed to more injuries. This won’t be the last time we discuss the preseason format.
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