The New York Giants official Twitter account seemingly predicts the team’s 2020 Week 1 opponent, but is it the right guess?
With the 2020 NFL regular-season schedule release approaching, fans of all 32 organizations are becoming anxious, impatiently waiting to see when each team will play who. Supporters of the New York Giants, and any ballclub for that matter, have known their team’s 2020 opponents since the conclusion of the 2019 regular season. Nonetheless, it’s still exciting to find out the Week 1 matchups.
For many of the annual schedule releases in recent years, Giants fans have had a “could’ve seen that one coming” moment when finding out who Big Blue plays Week 1. In the previous decade alone, the Giants faced the Dallas Cowboys six different times for the regular-season opener. Four of those matchups have come within the last five seasons.
And on Wednesday, the Giants official Twitter account weighed in on the possibility of that matchup landing on Week 1 again.
Screenshot to predict our Week 1 matchup ? pic.twitter.com/KeQhRp94n9
— New York Giants (@Giants) May 6, 2020
If you click the gif, it shows four different variations of the Cowboys logo, essentially predicting that the Giants will be facing off against their division rivals in early September (at least for now).
The question is, would it be a road game for the Giants?
Judging by the past, my guess is yes. Of the six times these two teams faced each other in the previous decade, five were in Arlington, Texas. The only time out of the six in which the matchup was at MetLife Stadium was during the 2012 season when the Giants were coming off a Super Bowl 46 victory and played the traditional Thursday night game during Week 1.
And what time would the game be?
That’s also uncertain. During the 2013, 2015, and 2017 seasons, the two teams played on Sunday Night Football during the opening weekend. But considering the Giants won just 12 games over the last three seasons, the league may be reluctant to place them in that time slot. Last year, Big Blue earned zero Sunday Night Football matchups.
Therefore, the game would likely be nationally broadcasted on FOX during the 4:25 p.m. ET slot with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman calling the game. That would be my guess, so it’ll be interesting to see if I’m right.
Although, on Wednesday, John Clayton of ESPN actually told 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh that the first four weeks of the regular season will be AFC vs NFC matchups. Thus, is the Giants Twitter account’s prediction actually wrong?
New York plays every team in the AFC North this year — the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cincinnati Bengals, and Baltimore Ravens — so keep that in mind prior to the actual release.
.@JohnClaytonNFL tells @937theFan that the NFL schedule will be NFC vs AFC for the 1st 4 weeks of the season. Steelers play the NFC East. So 1st 4 games would be Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins, and Giants.
— Andrew Fillipponi (@ThePoniExpress) May 6, 2020
Time will only tell what the 2020 slate looks like, and luckily for fans, that time is almost here. The NFL will officially release the new regular-season schedule at 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday night.
NFL 2020 regular-season schedule officially will be released Thursday night at 8 PM ET.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 4, 2020