Opinion: NFL needs to implement a bye week after regular season

The NFL has a problem with their scheduling and it is now apparent that the league needs a week off before the playoffs.

When the NFL looks back at 2020 they won’t likely make any changes but they should. The Miami Dolphins know this scheduling issue all too well.

This week there was supposed to be an out of division game between the Steelers and the Titans but due to several players and coaches testing positive for COVID on the Titans roster, the game has been postponed to later this season. That creates a big problem.

Had the Steelers and Titans shared a bye week, this would be an easy fix but they don’t. Miami Dolphins fans know all too well the problems that come with games being rescheduled. Fires out west and hurricanes have taken the Dolphins out of games.

While it doesn’t happen often, the rescheduling of this game isn’t unique. The Miami Dolphins had an opening weekend game rescheduled due to a hurricane. The NFL got lucky with that game because both teams shared a bye week. There was talk of having the teams play in a different location.

This time around, there are no neutral sites to play the game. This may be an odd year but it won’t be the last time the NFL deals with this kind of issue.

That being said, the most sense would be to add an additional week between the start of the post-season and the end of the regular season. If a game needs to be made up, play it that weekend. If the game has no impact on post-season seeding, then make a decision to cancel it.

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This weeks game cancellation is going to create a nightmare for the league and frankly, I’m not sure how or when they game will be made up. You can’t simply add an additional game to the schedule for any week. You will need to shift a couple of teams around to work within their bye weeks. Here are the current bye weeks for the 2020 season.

Week 5
Detroit, Green Bay
Week 6
New England, Las Vegas, Seattle, New Orleans
Week 7
Indianapolis, Tennessee, Minnesota, Jacksonville
Week 8
Pittsburgh, Denver, Arizona, Washington, Baltimore, Houston
Week 9
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Los Angeles
Week 10
Kansas City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta
Week 11
Buffalo, Miami, New York, New York, Chicago, San Francisco
Week 13
Tampa Bay, Carolina

The Titans bye week is week seven and the Steelers is a week later. It will be almost impossible to fit both teams into a week together without swapping out other teams. Now with this game being one that could have late December playoff implications, the NFL could look to canceling another contest instead.

In week 9, both teams play games against out-of-conference teams and those games could be cancelled as they have no huge baring on tie-breaking possibilities between the Titans and Steelers. The Steelers play Dallas and the Titans play Chicago.

Of course cancelling games creates an unfair bye week addition for those other teams. Unless the NFL opted to have those two clubs play each other.

This is probably what we will see the NFL do. They will put the Titans and Steelers against each other at some point and pit the two teams they were supposed to play against each other should the league deem this an important contest for the playoff scenarios.

Regardless it’s a nightmare and having a late season bye week would make this much easier.