The show will go on for NFL season
While much of the football world is scrambling to put a season together, the NFL has been calmly waiting it out.
Colleges have had summer workouts halted because of positive coronavirus tests and are choosing to play only conference foes, hoping to minimize the damage the disease will do to their most important sport.
High schools already have announced that early-season games have been erased because schools are starting online instead of in classrooms, and the possibility that no games will be played this fall is real.
The NFL, which usually starts its preseason before colleges and high schools report for practice, has announced that those early games will not be played but hasn’t said much else about its COVID-19 plan.
In a social media post, Texans defensive end J.J. Watt seemingly expressed frustration that players have received little in the way of a detailed plan from the league on how it plans to operate this season.
Here is what we know and don’t know, Watt posted, listing the following eight bullet points:
• We want to play.
• We want to be as safe as possible.
• We have not received a single valid IDER plan (Infectious Disease Emergency Response) from any team or the league.
• We don’t know if there are preseason games or not.
• We don’t know if there will be daily testing, semi-daily testing, etc.
• We don’t know how a potential positive Covid test would affect contracts, roster spots, etc.
• Nothing has been agreed upon regarding what training camp will actually look like and
how the “ramp up” period will work.
• We want to play.
I assure you the NFL has a plan.
The. Games. Will. Be. Played. My lack of concern about whether there will be an NFL season is rooted in Watt’s opening and closing points.
The players want to play. The owners want them to play.
The television networks want them to play.
Fans want to see them play. So they will play.
While the details of the league’s plan will matter, the “we don’t know” points made by Watt will soon be figured out. Watt wasn’t being disingenuous, because there are many unanswered questions, but much of that is now in negotiations between the league and its players’ union.
Not much of what the two sides are fighting over will affect fans.
The frequency of coronavirus testing, how many preseason games will be played, whether players will be paid their full salary for games missed because of positive tests for the virus, are all major issues for the players and the owners.
Labor negotiations shouldn’t keep teams off the field this season.
The NBA, MLB and MLS are doing a “trial-and-error” run at their seasons, giving the NFL more information with which to work. It should make their situation easier.
Not that the NFL isn’t concerned about player safety — I mean, they don’t knowingly allow concussed players return to the field anymore — but this isn’t a health issue.
Watt’s message is a money message.
The players want to know how they will be paid for taking the risks that almost all of them surely are going to take.
This isn’t like the chance at brain damage a player unwittingly signed up for when his parents put a helmet on his 8-yearold head.
There are many unknowns about the coronavirus that is at the center of a global pandemic, but the odds of contracting the disease is much lower if one self-quarantines than if he plays this NFL season.
The players have questions, but COVID-19 won’t stop them from playing.
As of last week, the NFLPA reported that 72 players had tested positive for the disease. That is less than 3 percent of the players on NFL offseason rosters.
In June, after nearly a dozen teams reported positive tests among players, the NFLPA medical director issued a statement telling players not to work out in groups because of the risk of spreading COVID-19.
The players posted fewer workout videos. They kept working out together.
When teams come together for training camp, the potential for the virus spreading will increase, so the league’s plan for operating in the coronavirus environment is important.
But nutty local politicians rank well ahead of COVID-19 on the list of what could keep the NFL from delivering its billiondollar shows to television networks this fall.
Many Friday Night Lights will be dark, and Saturday afternoons almost certainly will feature less football than we are accustomed to, but you can relax, there will be big hits on your Sunday TV schedule.
That NFL show will go on.