Midway through season, uncertainty reigns

From the unbeaten Steelers to the winless Jets, predictability has taken a hike in 2020. There’s one reason, of course: the coronavirus.

We can discuss the magnificence of Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes, of Aaron Donald and T. J. Watt. We can brag about the coaching of Brian Flores and Kliff Kingsbury in bringing alsorans to playoff contention.

The overriding fact, however, is that the pandemic has determined much of what we’ve seen, and almost certainly will continue to see with the predicted spikes in the coronavirus as the calendar heads toward winter.

Everyone would love to turn attention to the onfield product — well, maybe not Jets fans, though even their team’s hapless start is beyond what their followers’ most pessimistic projections could have envisioned.

But already having seen significant readjustments of the schedule because of COVID19 outbreaks, plus key people missing games because of the virus, well, the daily questions have become not how is a player performing, but how is he feeling?

“You’ve got to make sure that you’re doing the right thing so you can be healthy for your team, and your team’s able to play week after week,” said running back Derrick Henry, whose Titans had the major virus outbreak during the first half of the season. “… It’s a crazy time right now and every day I say a prayer for this team and for every player on every team around the league.”

Uncertainty about what’s ahead for November and December, not to mention for the playoffs and Super Bowl during an ongoing pandemic, could overshadow the onfield product.

And that product has been offensive — in a good way. Through nine weeks, 2020 marks the highestscoring season in NFL history: 6,737 points, 778 total touchdowns and 745 offensive touchdowns ( passing and rushing combined), all the most at this point in a schedule.

There has been an average of 50.7 points scored per game, the most through Week 9 since 1970.

Briefly: Carolina head coach Matt Rhule said that though he doesn’t anticipate running back Christian McCaffrey playing on Sunday against the Buccaneers because of a shoulder injury, Rhule doesn’t expect the Stanford alum to miss the rest of the season. ... Cleveland QB Baker Mayfield returned to practice feeling refreshed and somewhat relieved following a midseason break that ended with him on the COVID19 list. ... The Bengals claimed defensive end Takk McKinley, a Kennedy High Richmond alum, off waivers from the Falcons.