User:Iamnotapotato8/Sandbox/2020 Adelaide Football Club season

The 2020 season was the Adelaide Football Club's 30th season in the Australian Football League, and their 4th season in the AFL Women's.

Team changes
On 20 August 2019, Andy Otten announced that he would be retiring from the AFL after 12 years at the Adelaide Crows, but committed to playing out the remainder of the 2019 season. He had played the majority of the season for Adelaide's reserve team in the SANFL, helping the club reach a preliminary final, but was able to play three AFL games at the tail end of the season. Two days later, the club announced that former club champion Richard Douglas would also retire at the end of the season after 14 years at the club, but at a press conference later in the day Douglas said that he had been told by the club his contract would not be renewed and he was still open to playing on if another club made him an offer. On 18 September, the Crows announced they had delisted ruckman Paul Hunter, who had been on Adelaide's rookie list since 2015 but had not played an AFL game. This was the only change the club made to their list ahead of the 2019 free agency and trade periods.

Several players made moves to leave the Adelaide Crows either through free agency or trades, which was attributed to a continued decline in the club's culture after the club's loss in the 2017 AFL Grand Final and the controversial 2018 Adelaide Crows pre-season camp.

"[The culture]'s not as good as it was in 2017 when we were winning. It's kind of faded a little bit, it’s definitely not as strong, and that’s obviously shown in the performances that we’ve had the last couple of years where we haven’t made finals. It was very disappointing how it’s played out. [It was] multiple factors over the couple of years. A bit of [the camp], the Grand Final was a tough loss, obviously we tried to do a few things after that with the camp and other things. They didn’t work and that hurt the boys, the culture in the club and divided us. That stopped us playing the good team footy we were playing in that 2017 year that we made the Grand Final."

Ruckman Sam Jacobs notified the Crows that he intended to use his free agency rights to leave the club, and Fox Sports reported on 20 September that he was set to sign a multi-year contract with the Greater Western Sydney Giants. Rather than Jacobs going through free agency, the two clubs agreed to a trade so the Giants wouldn't lose compensation for other free agents leaving their club. The club announced on 25 September that they had come to an agreement with forward Josh Jenkins that he would leave the club after he had struggled to maintain his place in the side during 2019, and he was traded to Geelong on the final day of the trade period. The club announced on 29 September that Cam Ellis-Yolmen had also decided to leave Adelaide as an unrestricted free agent after eight years at the club. He finalised a three-year contract with the Brisbane Lions on 5 October, and the Crows received a third-round draft pick as compensation.

Alex Keath requested a trade to the Western Bulldogs. Keath had suffered a stress fracture in his leg during the 2019 season, which the Crows did not believe required any surgery for rehabilitation, but the Bulldogs informed Keath that their scans showed the injury would require surgery, and he would need the surgery before the trade to justify the contract offer they had given him. As Keath's contract with the Crows had not ended, they were required to pay for all costs of his surgery and subsequent treatment. The clubs took until the final day of the trade period to agree on a trade due to different opinions on what Keath was worth in a trade. Fox Sports reported on September 30 that Hugh Greenwood had also decided to leave the Crows because the club had only been willing to offer him a two-year contract, and on 1 October Greenwood officially requested a trade to the Gold Coast Suns. Greenwood was traded to the Suns on a three-year contract in exchange for two future draft picks.