After much anticipation, the San Francisco 49ers 2020 regular season schedule will be revealed this Thursday, May 7 at 4:30 p.m. PT on 49ers.com, the 49ers app and on all of the team's social media platforms.
In addition, NFL Network's coverage will be highlighted by Schedule Release '20 Presented by Verizon on Thursday, May 7 at 5:00 p.m. PT. The three-hour show will breaks down the upcoming 2020 NFL regular season schedule, division-by-division, analyzing the top matchups and primetime games.
The NFL app and NFL.com will provide complete team-by-team and weekly schedules of all 256 regular season games, listing opponents, sites and times.
San Francisco’s opponents were determined at the close of the 2019 regular season. In addition to San Francisco's divisional opponents (Arizona Cardinals, Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks), the 49ers will face the NFC East and AFC East. The 49ers will also see the New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers, as both teams also finished first in their respective divisions.
Those coming to Levi's® Stadium include the Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, Miami Dolphins, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Football Team and their NFC West division rivals, Cardinals, Rams and Seahawks.
This season, the 49ers will be traveling to take on the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, New York Jets, Cardinals, Rams and Seahawks.
It's worth noting, the league announced Monday that its five scheduled international games for 2020 -- four in London and one in Mexico City -- will instead be played stateside due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
San Francisco will head into the 2020 season with the fourth-toughest strength of schedule based on their opponents 2019 win percentages (.527). Only the Miami Dolphins (.529), New York Jets (.533) and New England Patriots (.537) have tougher upcoming schedules. The 49ers are scheduled to play six teams coming off of playoff appearances in 2019 (Patriots, Bills, Packers, Eagles, Seahawks, Saints).
Earlier this offseason, NFL players voted to pass the new Collective Bargaining Agreement which is set to bring immediate change to the playoff picture.
Previously, 12 teams (six from each conference) advanced in the NFL's playoff structure that included four first-round byes and eight teams in the Wild Card matchups. That number has been increased to 14 teams qualifying for the postseason, as each conference will have seven playoff teams. Under the new CBA, only the No. 1 seed in each conference would receive a bye for the Wild Card round.
To put that into context, in 2019, the 49ers, who were the top seed in the NFC, and the No. 2 seeded Green Bay Packers both received first-round byes heading into the postseason. If this were the case under the new CBA, only the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens (first in the AFC) would have received a first-round bye, and the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers would have been the seventh-added seeds.
This formula widens the road to the Super Bowl and makes the top seed in each conference more significant in the playoff race.
For more on the new CBA deal and what it means for the 49ers, click here.
