Three ways the NFL could be affected if college football season is canceled/postponed
Although it’s cloudy now, the future of the 2020 college football season should be clear this week.
There is a good chance there will be no games this fall, although some have speculated the season could be played in the spring.
If college football is postponed or canceled, the ripple effect likely will be felt in the NFL. Here are three ways the absence of the college game may impact the NFL.
1. The Combine
Watching tape of players is a key part of scouting for Chiefs coach Brett Veach, who has raved about seeing quarterback Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech and running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire at LSU.
But with no games in the fall, the emphasis would switch to seeing players in person at the annual NFL Combine, as NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah noted.
“It’s rough — it’s an inexact process, even when we have all the information,” an AFC scout told Terez A. Paylor of Yahoo Sports. “So this is going to muddy the water quite a bit.”
The Senior Bowl also seems out of the question if players haven’t taken the field this fall.
2. The Draft
If college conferences decide on playing in the spring, that would give NFL teams film of players. But what about the draft, which is scheduled for April 29-May 1 in Cleveland?
It’s not as simply as holding the draft later in the year as Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network noted:
It would be strange to hold the draft during the college football season, but that happens with NCAA baseball.
3. Saturday games
ESPN’s Adam Schefter said no college football games would mean NFL games could be played on Saturdays.
Schefter said Monday on ESPN’s “Get Up” he believes the NFL would wait to move games until after other pro leagues have finished their seasons.
“Just see how things are going in its own sport with how the games are going on during a pandemic,” Schefter said. “And then there is a window of opportunity and then there is built-in flexibility with the idea that fans don’t have to worry about being in Lambeau Field at 1 o’clock Eastern on Sunday, because there are no fans and they don’t have to worry about hotels in a certain city. So there’s all sorts of flexibility that the NFL will have at its disposal to do the best thing for the league going forward.”
NFL games are usually played on Saturdays in December after college football’s regular-season ends.
In theory, NFL fans could see games on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday sooner than December.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 12:20 PM with the headline "Three ways the NFL could be affected if college football season is canceled/postponed."
