Five bold predictions for the Washington Football Team in 2020

By Jonathan Eig | Aug 1, 2020

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - DECEMBER 08: Ryan Anderson #52 of the Washington football team lines up for a play in the fourth quarter against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on December 08, 2019 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

2 of 6

ATLANTA, GA – FEBRUARY 4: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is interviewed at a press conference on February 4, 2019 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

ATLANTA, GA – FEBRUARY 4: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is interviewed at a press conference on February 4, 2019 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images) /

5. The NFL will play a full 16-game season

This does not mean that all teams will play 16 games. In fact, here’s a sidebar prediction. There will be forfeited games.

You know the last time an NFL team forfeited a game? Never. It has never happened. There have been cancellations and postponements, but never a forfeit. I know some of you may be saying that Jim Zorn’s “swinging gate” play against the Giants in 2009 was kind of a de facto forfeit. But it doesn’t go down like that in the record books.

The NFL is simply too big to fail. I’m not just talking about money, though there is serious money at stake. The league and the teams are rich enough to survive an abandoned season. Other ancillary businesses are not, and they would suffer genuine economic catastrophe.

More from Commanders News

I’m talking about the way that the NFL figures into the American psyche. We all desperately want schools to re-open. We all want to go back to restaurants and bars and be able to walk into a favorite shop. These things are important. Perhaps essential. Football is not.

But in a very real way, football is more than that. It defines a national attitude. There’s a reason why that of the 20 most-watched television programs of all time, 19 of them are Super Bowls. (Bonus points if you know the single outlier.)

Other sports may have equal or greater regional appeal – high school and college football throughout the south, hockey in parts of the north, basketball in urban centers like LA and Philly. But the NFL is national. I can’t even comprehend the level of anger and frustration that would ensue should the NFL season be canceled.

That’s it for league-wide predictions. You don’t want to hear any more of that, right? Let’s move on to the Washington Football Team.

Home/Commanders News