AROUND THENFL
There’ll be no international flavour to 2020 NFL games ... Schedule will be released on Thursday ... More options declined on former high picks
If there is a 2020 NFL season, games will be played only within the continental United States.
The league on Monday announced that all International Series games previously arranged for either England or Mexico have been scrapped.
Instead, those games will be moved to the U.S. “in order for the entire season to be played in NFL teams’ stadia under consistent protocols focused on the well-being of players, personnel and fans.”
The league then announced Monday night it will release its full 2020 schedule this coming Thursday night.
In a statement earlier Monday, the league said the decision to cancel international games was made by commissioner Roger Goodell, “after consultation with our clubs, national and local governments, the NFL Players Association, medical authorities and international stadium partners.”
This is the first appreciable deviation from the league’s stated intention throughout coronavirus-pandemic sequestering that its primary goal would be to hold a regular season and playoffs as normal.
Multiple annual games staged in England, plus one in Mexico City, had become the NFL’s normal.
While some 2020 matchups had leaked out, such as Detroit being Jacksonville’s annual opponent for a game in England, officially only the Jaguars, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins had been announced as teams (home teams, in fact) for the four games in London — two at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and two at Wembley Stadium.
One game would have been played in Mexico City at Azteca Stadium, perhaps on a late-season Monday night, as in recent years.
The NFL had said last week it expected to release its full regular-season schedule some time this week, before or on Saturday. It will do so on Thursday, on NFL Network starting at 8 p.m. in a three-hour telecast. Hopefully they don’t drag it for all 180 minutes, like CBS used to do with the NCAA March Madness bracket.
Monday’s elimination of games on foreign soil had to have been contemplated and discussed intensely for weeks. That the league waited until practically the last minute to announce it suggests it held out as long as possible for return-to-normal factors and conditions to have progressed far enough for the London and Mexico City games to be at least ostensibly scheduled.
But no.
OPTIONS DECLINED
Yet more teams have declined fifth-year options on 2017 first-round rookies with Tuesday afternoon’s deadline practically here. Cleveland exercised its option with No. 1 overall pick Myles Garrett.
But immediately after that? Yeesh.
Chicago and No. 2 overall QB Mitchell Trubisky? Nope.
San Francisco and No. 3 overall DL Solomon
Thomas? Nope. Jacksonville and No. 4 overall RB Leonard Fournette? Nope. Tennessee and No. 5 overall WR Corey Davis? Nope.
At least the next three first-rounders were rewarded: S Jamal Adams by the Jets, WR Mike Williams by the Chargers and the Panthers already gave RB Christian
McCaffrey a lucrative second
contract.
In all, it appears only 18 first-rounders from 2017 — including QBs Patrick
Mahomes and Deshaun Watson — will be extended. But understand that teams are not bound to this. Not until the first week of the 2021 league year (i.e., the middle of next March) are teams locked into paying a 2017 Round 1 pick his lucrative, fully guaranteed fifthyear salary — which ranges from $5.2 million for running backs to $17.5 million for quarterbacks.
They’ve still got to earn it.
SWITCHING HARBAUGHS
In being selected in Round 4 of last month’s draft by the Baltimore Ravens, guard Ben
Bredeson is going from one Harbaugh brother another.
Jim to John.
Jim Harbaugh was his head coach at Michigan for the past four years, and John
Harbaugh is now his first pro head coach.
“There are a lot of similarities,” Bredeson told Baltimore reporters Monday via video conference. “Each (has his) own tweaks ... but you can definitely see a lot of glaring similarities between the two. The way the playbook is set up, the way the program is being run, their mannerisms; a lot of them are the same. It’s comforting.”
COLLEGE FLAG FOOTBALL
The NFL is a partner in the lowest level of U.S. university sports — the NAIA — deciding to add women’s flag football as a varsity sport starting in 2021, the leagues announced in partnership with Reigning Champs Experiences (RCX).
“Football is for everyone,” NFL executive VP of football operations Troy Vincent said in a statement. “This groundbreaking and historic joint venture provides an opportunity for the values, fun and competitive environment of football to be enjoyed as a varsity sport by female student-athletes attending NAIA institutions across America.”
EXTRA POINTS
Dallas waived QB Cooper Rush, a backup to Dak Prescott for the past three years. His services were no longer required after the weekend signing of Cincinnati cast-off Andy Dalton ... Chicago confirmed the signing of 14th-year WR Ted Ginn Jr. ... Kansas City waived RB Mike Weber and TE Alize Mack.