The NFL will release the 2020 schedule for all 32 teams on Thursday night, but according to one expert, the Redskins already have a serious disadvantage.
ESPN’s Mike Clay ranked Washington’s schedule among the toughest in the league, the third-toughest to be exact behind only the Panthers and the Falcons.
Post-draft 2020 NFL Strength of Schedule (Opponents shown in random order. Red = hardest. Green = easiest)#ClayProjections pic.twitter.com/KWy75fjzWF
— Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) May 4, 2020
While the exact schedule remains unknown - what dates the games will actually be played - it is known what teams the Redskins will face. And many of those teams are very good.
Washington travels to San Francisco, the defending NFC champions, and will host Baltimore, the AFC’s best regular season team in 2019. Beyond the 49ers, the Redskins play the entire NFC West, perhaps the best division in football, and then the whole AFC North, which is more than just the tough Ravens team. That means games in Pittsburgh and home against the Seahawks.
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Ron Rivera is rebuilding this Washington team, and most expect the Redskins to take some lumps this year. Dallas and Philadelphia look to compete for the division title and no NFC East games come easy, ever. On paper, the Redskins only look to be favored in three games when Carolina, Cincinnati, and the Giants come to FedEx Field.
That said, projecting NFL performance is hard going week by week in season, let alone five months before any action is even slated to begin.
Every year teams with high expectations underperform, and every year teams with low expectations come from nowhere to claim a playoff bid. Keep in mind too that the NFL added an additional Wild Card team to the playoff format, meaning seven teams from each conference will make the postseason.
Add all of that up and it's highly possible the Redskins schedule will look much different in September than it does in May. But in May, it sure looks hard.
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