The NFL intends to play its 2020 season, and the league will release its full schedule this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday, to reinforce that.
But the contingency plans expected to accompany the announcement only highlight how tenuous the situation is in this coronavirus pandemic, facing so many shifting and unknown variables.
League spokesman Brian McCarthy tweeted Wednesday that kickoff remains slated for Sept. 10 with Super Bowl LV in Tampa on schedule for Feb. 7, 2021, for example. And his confidence is not manufactured: you can’t find anyone prepared to bet against the NFL season happening at the moment.
However, Sports Business Journal reported schedule-makers are building in measures that could allow them to push back the start of the regular season until as late as Oct. 15, and the Super Bowl to Feb. 28, if necessary.
And the Associated Press reported the NFL is discussing playing in empty stadiums or at neutral sites and eliminating bye weeks.
Still, all of those measures are secondary to actually finding a way to kick off the season in the first place. So how will the league even do that?
Well, sources familiar with teams’ thinking have speculated that clubs could end up having to quarantine players and staff beginning at the start of training camp in late July or August. This would mean isolating players and staff from the general public at least.
It could be necessary. But such a measure, like any change in the schedule, would require the sign-off of the NFL Players’ Association. And no decision here would be simple for the players.
Many players would not want to be separated from their families for an extended period of time, if that were asked of them. They’d also be putting their own health at risk by playing in the first place. And some legal experts are skeptical whether the new collective bargaining agreement gives them recourse in the event they contract the virus and they believe a club is liable.
Still, on the other hand, if the league doesn’t play the 2020 season, there is a lot of money at stake for everyone to lose, the players and their families included. And so, hypothetically, if quarantined training camps became the NFL’s answer to prioritizing players’ health and employment, it would seem a reasonable sacrifice to make.
Of course, all 50 states can handle this situation independently and have their own laws and varying degrees of leniency. So that could impact what is required of which teams, although the NFL has tried to keep its organizations operating on a level playing field in the offseason.
Regarding testing, it’s only logical the league and NFLPA will buy coronavirus testing to administer to players and staff to control the environment, medical experts say. But since there still isn’t enough testing available to average Americans, that would only work if it didn’t come at citizens’ expense.
Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive VP of football operations, assured the Associated Press that the NFL would not take virus tests away from the public.
“We won’t,” he told the AP. “General public safety is first and foremost.”
It will be interesting to see how the NFL toes that line.
The league is intent upon proceeding with its season, however, only if it can do so as safely as possible for its players, for all teams’ and league staffs, and for the fans. So that is what puts any possibility on the table for discussion, if not consideration and adoption for the 2020 season.
This is why Pro Football Network says the league has spoken with Delta Airlines and Marriott Hotels about securing use of dedicated planes and hotels, respectively, to keep teams isolated.
And it is why this week’s NFL’s full schedule release will be accompanied by a big asterisk full of contingency plans for the season ahead:
Because no one, not even the mighty NFL, can guarantee much at the moment.
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